Dell Inc. is officially jumping into the "smart" phone market this month in a deal with China's biggest wireless carrier, China Mobile Ltd.

The Dell Mini 3, a keyboard[-]less touch-screen phone that runs Google Inc.'s Android operating system, will also be available in Brazil later this year. The computer maker, based in Round Rock, Texas, would not say when the phone would reach the U.S.

Friday's announcement ends more than two years of speculation that Dell, now the world's third-largest PC company by unit shipments, would expand into the phone business.

The economic downturn abruptly halted growth in the computer industry this year as consumers and businesses held off buying new technology. Hewlett-Packard Co., the No. 1 computer maker worldwide, fared better than Dell because its business is more diverse. Acer Inc., a Taiwan-based company, pushed past Dell to the No. 2 spot in the most recent quarter on the popularity of its tiny, inexpensive netbook computers, a category Dell was slow to enter.

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