Dell Posts Strong 3rd-Quarter Gains, Expects Big 4th-Quarter Growth
A Wall Street Journal Online News Roundup
Thursday November 14, 4:43 pm ET
Dell Computer Corp.'s fiscal third-quarter earnings rose 31%, as the personal-computer maker continued to outpace rivals amid a tough market.
Late Thursday, Dell posted net income of $561 million, or 21 cents a share, compared with $429 million, or 16 cents a share, a year earlier.
Its results were in line with company estimates. Dell, which recently reclaimed the title of world's largest PC maker from Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ - News) , last month said it expected to report earnings of 21 cents a share for the quarter ended Nov. 1.
Revenue rose 22% to $9.14 billion from $7.47 billion.
The Austin, Texas, company has been accelerating its PC market-share gains from rivals such as H-P and Gateway Inc. (NYSE:GTW - News) and increasing the still-small portion of its business from higher-profit servers and storage subsystems. Its PC business, which accounts for about 80% of revenue, also is benefiting from an increased preference for notebook computers.
Dell said overall product shipments rose 28%, and revenue from so-called enterprise products -- servers, storage systems, network switches and workstations -- jumped 27%.
Looking forward, Chairman and Chief Executive Michael Dell said fiscal fourth- quarter company shipments could increase 10% from the third quarter, or 23% from a year earlier. Revenue is expected to rise about 20% from a year ago to $9.7 billion, with earnings coming in at 23 cents a share, up 35% and the same as the mean estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call. |
