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Technology Stocks : Dell Technologies Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kaka who wrote (172798)	5/15/2003 8:40:06 PM
From: William F. Wager, Jr.	Respond to of 176387

Dell's Earnings Rose 31% As Shipments Surged 29% Focus on Small Business, Consumers Helped To Overcome Slack Demand in First Quarter By GARY MCWILLIAMS Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Dell Computer Corp., the world's largest personal-computer maker, saw fiscal first-quarter net income rise 31%, overcoming slack industry demand and big corporations' continued reluctance to increase their technology spending. The Round Rock, Texas, computer maker had net income of $598 million, or 23 cents a share, compared with $457 million, or 17 cents a share, a year earlier. While industry PC shipments inched ahead just 2% world-wide in the first calendar quarter, Dell said its shipments for the three months ended May 2 jumped 29%, the highest rate in more than two years. Revenue rose 18% to $9.53 billion from $8.07 billion a year earlier. Kevin B. Rollins, chief operating officer, called the computer market "stable," adding: "We're hopeful, but we haven't seen a big uptick in that corporate market." Dell is countering the corporate decline with sales to small and medium-size businesses, consumers and institutional buyers, he said. The gains are critical to its strategy of selling more higher-margin server-computers, storage devices and services, and reducing its reliance on PCs. In servers, where it competes against International Business Machines Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Sun Microsystems Inc., Dell said its focus on small and midsize customers contributed to revenue being up 20% on a 40% unit increase. Analysts said the results show Dell is continuing to press its price advantage to take share away from rivals. "The only place you see people growing is where they are taking share. Dell is the prime example," said Barry Jaruzelski, a senior vice president at consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton. For the fiscal second quarter ending Aug. 1, Dell forecast earnings of 24 cents a share, compared with net of $501 million, or 19 cents a share, a year earlier. Second-quarter revenue was projected to rise 15% to $9.7 billion from $8.46 billion a year-ago. The forecast was in line with Wall Street's consensus, according to Thomson First Call. Dell's revenue outlook comes amid a mixed bag of reports by big technology concerns. IBM and Cisco Systems Inc. each made relatively upbeat comments on customer demand this week. IBM pointed to signs that its customers were resuming computer projects, in contrast to last year's deferrals. But computer distributors Ingram Micro Inc. and Tech Data Corp. recently said they had seen no signs of an upturn in U.S. demand. Dell's first-quarter profit was aided by strong gains in Europe and Asia and continued cost-cutting. Operating expenses edged down to 9.8% of revenue from 9.9% a year earlier. The company said unit sales in Asia and Japan rose 40%. Shipments climbed 38% in France and 16% in Germany. In the first calendar quarter, Dell's share of world-wide PC shipments rose three percentage points to a market-leading 17.3%, according to International Data Corp. Second-place H-P slipped further behind, with a 15.8% world-wide share of shipments. In 4 p.m. trading Thursday on the Nasdaq Stock Market, Dell's shares were down seven cents at $32.18. In after-hours trading, the shares fell to $31.54. Its shares are up nearly 20% since the start of the year, and a hit a new 52-week high this week as investors bet the company's strong financial performance would continue as computer demand picks up. Dell said it was pleased with a recent entry into the printer market against H-P, but said it didn't expect "substantial" revenue or profit from the venture for three to four years. Write to Gary McWilliams at gary.mcwilliams@wsj.com Updated May 16, 2003

To: kaka who wrote (172798)	5/15/2003 8:57:28 PM
From: William F. Wager, Jr.	Respond to of 176387

Cut In Dividend Tax Still In Play Senate Republicans collected enough votes in favor of cutting taxes on dividends by 50% this year, suspending them entirely in '04, '05 and '06. This revived the crux of President Bush's stimulus plan. They wrote less generous cuts for married couples and small businesses. The House already passed a bill to cut dividend taxes. *********************************************************** DELL will follow Microsoft's lead. Hope it is not as small.(0.08 annual dividend per share)