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Dell profit falls 47%

By Reuters
San Francisco, 16 Nov 2012

Dell's third quarter profit slid 47%, hurt by lower PC sales, weaker demand from large corporations, and the shift to mobile computing.

Dell's consumer PC business is struggling as more and more consumers are using smartphones and tablets to do basic computing, and the company's corporate customers continue to defer spending due to the uncertain state of the economy.

The number three PC maker warned it "sees the challenging global macroeconomic environment continuing in the fourth quarter".

The company, once the world's top PC maker and a pioneer in computer supply chain management, is struggling to defend its market share against Asian rivals like Lenovo. It is trying to bolster growth by focusing on products and services to corporations.

The company said it expects revenue to grow as much as 5% in the current quarter.

"Our outlook for the quarter would be generally consistent with what we typically see in terms of a seasonal pickup," it said.

Dell said revenue in its fiscal third quarter fell 11% to $13.7 billion, slightly lower than the average analyst estimate of $13.89 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

It posted net income of $475 million or 27 cents a share in the quarter, compared with $893 million or 49 cents a year earlier. Excluding certain items, it earned 39 cents a share, compared to an average forecast for 40 cents.

CFO Brian Gladden said in an interview that corporate customers continue to defer technology spending.

"It's not clear what's going to cause them to increase their spending in the short term, given the uncertainty in the economy," he said.

Dell's enterprise solutions revenue rose 3% to $4.8 billion, while server and networking revenue climbed 11%. In contrast, consumer revenue plummeted 23% to $2.5 billion, underscoring the plight of the broader PC market, and sales to large corporation declined 8% to $4.2 billion in the quarter.

Dell's "challenges are frankly the same as before - namely the tough macroeconomic environment and cannibalisation from mobile devices using mobile operating systems from Apple and Google," said Shaw Wu, analyst with Sterne Agee.

The consumer market is improving with the launch of the Windows 8 software from Microsoft, which has been designed with touch-screen devices and Internet-based computing in mind, Gladden said.

But sales of devices featuring the Windows 8 software have yet to ramp up while Microsoft is already in the market with its new Surface tablet computer, which may hurt PC sales.

Planning for 'fiscal cliff'

Apart from the consumer, Dell's business customers have held back spending, which could be partly attributed to the looming fiscal cliff, Gladden said.

The fiscal cliff involves $600 billion in automatic tax hikes and spending cuts effective in early 2013 if US lawmakers fail to agree on reducing the budget deficit.

The cuts could take a toll on consumer and government spending and cause the economy to stall.

"I would tell you that the behaviour we are seeing from our customers today is actually driven by that uncertainty," Gladden said. "It's not like it's all going to happen overnight. It's affecting our business today."

Dell is ensuring it has access to cash in case there is no congressional action.

"I would say there are several things we are doing from a planning standpoint, especially on the treasury side to ensure that we are in a position to have appropriate access to liquidity," Gladden said, adding that Dell is making sure it has access to lines of credit and commercial paper.

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