After having set for itself the task of becoming the No.1 PC brand in India back in 2007, the company finally managed to check all the boxes, one by one, over the last four quarters.

An early sign of Dell�s intentions came in early 2010 when it became clear that it had beaten the long-reigning PC champ of India, HP, in the laptop market. HP fought back by reclaiming the notebook title in the first quarter. However, Dell finally had its revenge in the June quarter when it emerged as the top PC brand India � notebooks and desktops combined � cutting short a five-year-reign by HP. As if to rub it in, the September quarter numbers also showed HP�s final bastion � desktops � had also fallen to Dell.

Three years is all it took to grab the throne, and without using the biggest advertising medium in the country � television. DNA caught up with Amit Midha, chairman of Dell�s Greater China and South Asia unit, to find out how the firm looked back on the year. Excerpts from the interview:

You have built up the biggest PC brand in India in the last 3 years, but you haven�t used the TV. Is it part of your strategy to keep costs down?
It�s our DNA. We are pro-customer (in driving down costs) and that connects well with the mindset in India...

We didn�t use a film star to say, �Buy Dell.� That doesn�t fit well with our DNA. The believability of a customer who has used your product is significantly higher than that of a celebrity taking money to endorse your product. It�s going to accelerate more with Twitter and Facebook. We were able to get to number one spot without having to spend on the most expensive marketing communication platform.

But you have been more visible only in the last 2 years or so�

Yes. We had a good employee base in India (currently 23,000), we had a manufacturing base. We thought the brand was a gap. So it was a matter of getting the message out... So, around 3.5 years ago, we said we need to launch a brand campaign, we need to commit to the market in a significant way. So, after setting up manufacturing in 2006, in 2007, we started going through channels (retail network) because we realised that our traditional online and call-centre model would not work (in India).