Dell Earnings Beat Forecast While Revenue Falls Short

Dellreported quarterly earnings that beat Wall Street's expectations and revenue that fell short of analysts' forecasts on Tuesday, hurt by lower sales to consumers.

Dell
AP
Dell

The world's No. 3 maker of personal computers delivered earnings excluding items of 54 cents per share, upfrom 45 cents in the year-earlier period.

Net earnings for the quarter rose to $893 million, or 49 cents a share, from $822 million, or 42 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

Revenue was $15.37 billion, compared to $15.39 billion a year ago.

Analysts had expected the company, based in Round Rock, Texas, to report earnings of 47 cents per share on revenue of $15.65 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

Its shares fell 0.9 percent after the closing bell. During regular trading hours, Dell's stock rose 2 percent to close at $15.63. (Get after-hour quotes for Dell here.)

Dell also warned that full-year revenue could be hurt by an industrywide shortage of hard drives.

The uncertainties surrounding the economy and the hard drive shortage due to the flooding in Thailand means that Dell's fiscal 2012 full-year revenue is tracking at the lower end of its growth forecast of 1 to 5 percent, the company said.

Severe flooding in Thailand, which produces one-quarter of the world's hard drives, has sparked a rise in prices and stranded many factories.

Analysts on average had projected a 1.6 percent climb in Dell's fiscal 2012 revenue to almost $62.5 billion.

Dell's large enterprise business increased sales 8 percent on good demand for desktop PCs, servers and networking equipment as corporations continued to upgrade aging hardware. Sales to consumers fell 6 percent.

Shares of Dell slid 2 percent to $15.32 in extended trade, after closing at $15.63 on Nasdaq.