Dell Inc.’s move into the smartphone market is risky but could provide the computer maker with a service-based revenue stream rather than another device producing low profit margins.

Round Rock, Texas-based Dell, which revealed in November that it planned to launch a Mini 3i smartphone in China, could enable revenue sharing by bundling, much like it has already done with its netbooks, industry observers said.

During last month’s quarterly earnings call, chief financial officer Brian Gladden said Dell’s smartphone business will be “carrier-centric.”

He said the company’s smartphone play is a natural extension of its netbook business, which Dell sold with service provided by AT&T Inc.

Netbooks are scaled-down and more-compact laptop computers that have proven popular with consumers because of their low cost and mobility. But like smartphones, netbooks provide more profits from the wireless service subscriptions than from the devices themselves.

Dell is reportedly teaming with carrier China Mobile Ltd. for its Chinese business and a carrier affiliated with Mexico’s America Movil S.A.B. de C.V. to eventually sell its phone in Brazil.

Michael Gale, the CEO of Strategic Oxygen, an Austin-based marketing firm specializing in the technology sector, said the Dell brand isn’t as established in China. As a result, consumers there may not be as quick to dismiss the company as a viable choice among smartphone makers.

“This is a really good opportunity for Dell to build its own ecosystem there,” Gale said. “By sheer numbers, it’s a much bigger pond to be in.”

Dell spokesman Matt Parretta declined to comment on any bundling deals the company is arranging with carriers and the effect of Dell’s smartphone business on local jobs.

Mobile-phone makers typically don’t release revenue figures. But the smartphone market is estimated to be worth about $20 billion per year. Smartphones, which combine Internet and email access on a cell phone, are projected to outsell conventional mobile phones by 2012.

Stefan Bewley, a principal at Altman Vilandrie & Co., a Boston-based telecom consulting firm, said a device maker could expect to garner 40 percent to 60 percent of wireless service revenue from wholesale deals with interested wireless service companies.

Dell also has a not-so-secret weapon entering the China market. Vice president of consumer sales and marketing Michael Tatelman was previously Motorola Inc.’s cell-phone marketing manager for North Asia. Such experience should benefit Dell’s entry into China and India, Gale said.

China Mobile’s Mini 3i is expected to compete with rival China Unicom Ltd.’s iPhone launch.

Diminishing profit margins on such devices are what have put Dell behind the eight ball. In October, Dell lost its No. 2 ranking to Taiwan-based Acer Inc., which supplanted Dell by selling millions of lower-priced devices, especially netbooks.