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The commoditisation of computer hardware means that price and efficiency have become more important than quality and branding, making China a favourite place to source a broad range of goods, including electronic components.

"China is critical to Dell's global supply chain," founder and chief executive Michael Dell claims. "Dell will purchase $70 billion of computer-related supplies and equipment from China," he claims, referring to total purchases over the 2007-2009 period.

Dell is far from alone in looking to China to reduce manufacturing costs and remain competitive. Last November, Cisco said it would almost double its purchasing from Chinese suppliers over five years to $16 billion.

But as PC Pro revealed last month, an increasing number of <

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components produced in China and other Asian countries are cloned, meaning that Dell will have to take extreme care to ensure customers do not end up with fake components in their PCs.

Dell says it's confident it can maintain quality control. "Dell has been doing business in China since 1998," the company says in a statement. "The company has garnered a reputation as having the most sophisticated and disciplined supply chains in the IT industry, a capability that has been studied by universities in the United States and China (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Beijing University) and recognised by third-party organisations in both countries (Chinese Ministry of Information, US National Minority Supplier Diversity Council)."

Hardware makers such as Dell, Cisco and HP could be hit hard by a US economic downturn, Dell even more so because it relies on the US for about half of its revenue, a much higher proportion than larger rival HP.

That makes China's role as a customer equally important to Dell, which saw a 54% rise in unit sales on the mainland during its last financial quarter. "China is one of the most dynamic and fastest-growing economies in the world, and we've made significant business and social investments here in the past 10 years," says Michael Dell.