Dell Shares Skid as Earnings, Outlook Disappoint
Dell's quarterly earnings and outlookmissed Wall Street's expectations on Tuesday as consumer sales fell sharply.
After the earnings announcement, the personal computer maker's shares fell more than 8 percent in trading after the closing bell. (Click here to get the latest real-time quotes for Dell.)
The company posted first-quarter earnings excluding items of 43cents per share, down from 55 cents a share in the year-earlier period.
Net income was $635 million, or 36 cents a share, down from $945 million, or 49 cents a share, a year earlier.
Revenue fell 4 percent to $14.42 billion from $15.02 billion a year ago.
The company's sales were hurt by weak sales to consumers, large enterprises and government units. PC makers have struggled with slowing demand as mobile devices such as Apple's iPad erode market share.
Among the divisions, sales to consumers took a big hit with consumer revenue slipping 12 percent to $3 billion. Sales to large corporations declined 3 percent to $4.4 billion.
On the company's earnings call, Dell said it fell short of its own expectations, but that it is starting to see improvement in U.S. federal spending.
Analysts had expected the company to report earnings excluding items of 46 cents a share on $14.91 billion in revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.
The company’s outlook of also fell short: It projected revenue growth of 2 to 4 percent, which would be $15 billion at the high end — analysts are looking for $14.9 billion to $15.76 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.
