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Dell founder and Chief Executive Michael Dell appeared optimistic about the PC market during a speech given in China Thursday, according to a Bloomberg report.
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Speaking about the global market, he said, "Week on week, the demand for PC sales has been steady." He added that he anticipates "encouraging" demand from U.S. consumers, though he did not provide detail as to why. Research firm IDC said it expects global PC shipments to drop 4.5 percent during 2009.

In particular, Dell has high hopes for the Chinese PC market, where his company increased sales last year by 28 percent. In terms of revenue, China is now Dell's second-largest market.

The world's second-largest PC maker, Dell also announced plans to sell 15 different computer models to rural Chinese farmers, a huge market that will soon be flush with government cash. China is poised to shower some 800 million farmers with 20 billion yuan ($2.9 billion) of subsidies enabling them to buy home appliances, which apparently includes PCs.

Dell's most recent quarterly earnings report reflected waning demand for consumer PCs and falling IT budgets at large enterprise companies hitting the entire industry, with revenue dropping 16 percent to $13.4 billion.
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But that hasn't stopped Dell from introducing both a new luxury consumer notebook and a new enterprise suite of servers, workstations, and IT services in the past few weeks.