24/7 Wall St.

Dell (DELL) may have made its biggest move since the return of Michael Dell to demonstrate that it is serious to turn itself around. According to The Wall Street Journal, Dell has set up an agreement with Gome Group, China’s largest electronics retailer, to offer the PC companies products in its stores. It has 1,000 of them in 168 cities.

China is the world’s second largest PC market, and its is growing much faster than the US and Europe.

Dell still has a great deal to prove to investors. Its direct-to-customer model turned out to have limitations, and companies like HP (HPQ) are well ahead in terms of global retail networks. So far this year, Dell’s shares are up a bit over 10%, but HP’s have gained almost 25%. There has also been a question about whether more aggressive competition from Lenovo and Acer would  further cut Dell’s market shares.

Hewlett-Packard saw its notebook shipments jump by 77 percent, year over year, during the second quarter while Acer saw its growth jump by 74 percent, according to DisplaySearch. Dell’s shipments moved up only 10% over the same period.

Douglas A. McIntyre