Market share gains in commercial and consumer products and services, as well as lower operating costs helped Dell beat Wall Street expectations for the first fiscal quarter ended April 30.
Michael Dell, chairman and CEO, said he expects the company to continue to achieve growth going forward.
"We are executing on all points of our strategy to drive growth in every product category and in every part of the world," Dell said in a statement. "These results are early signs of our progress against our five strategic priorities. Through a continued focus, we expect to continue growing faster than the industry and increase our revenue, profitability and cash flow for greater shareholder value."
The Round Rock, Texas-based vendor earned $784 million, or 38 cents per share, on $16.08 billion in sales for the quarter. Sales were up 9 percent compared to the year-ago quarter while earnings increased 12 percent for the same period last year.
Wall Street was expecting earnings of 34 cents per share and sales of $15.7 billion.
Dell's product shipments increased 22 percent in the quarter, with servers growing at 21 percent, three times the industry rate, the company noted. Storage revenue increased 15 percent and "enhanced services" revenue was up 13 percent. Notebooks increased sharply, by 43 percent.
Dell's growth was spurred specifically by regions outside the United States. Sales from outside the U.S. surpassed the company's U.S. revenue for the first time. Americas Commercial revenue was up only slightly, to $7.30 billion from $7.25 billion in the year-ago quarter.
In its statement, the company did not break out its channel sales growth.
Looking forward, Dell sees "conservatism in IT spending in the U.S, particularly with its global and large customers as well as public, small and medium business accounts."
The company expects the trend to continue through the summer, particularly as many of those customer segments are seasonally slower.
Dell shares closed Thursday at $21.81, up 12 cents per share.
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