Dell Shares Fall After Market Close As Profit Misses Expectations

The Round Rock, Tex.-based vendor reported earnings of $545 million, or 28 cents per share, on $15.53 billion in sales. Analysts were predicting earnings of 30 cents per share on sales of $15.21 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

In the year-ago quarter, Dell reported net income of $472 million, or 24 cents per share, on $12.76 billion in sales.

Shares closed at $12.04 on Thursday, and were down another 25 cents after market close, when the second-quarter financials were released.

Dell’s best-performing business unit was large enterprise, which reported $4.5 billion in sales, up 38 percent, with servers, services and mobility all improving more than 50 percent, according to the company.

Public sector revenue was $4.6 billion, up 21 percent. SMB revenue was $3.5 billion, up 25 percent and consumer product sales were $2.9 billion, flat compared to last year.

Within the SMB space, revenue for SMB server and networking products increased 28 percent; storage sales increased 22 percent; desktop PCs increased 29 percent, and mobility increased 32 percent.

In the Enterprise group. EqualLogic storage products grew 63 percent, according to the company.

For the current October-end quarter, analysts expect earnings of 32 cents per share on sales of $15.49 billion.

Overall, services sales increased 57 percent, due in part to the impact of the Perot Systems acquisition. Servers and Networking products increased 35 percent, mobility products, including notebooks, increased 21 percent, desktop PCs increased 17 percent, Storage sales increased 13 percent.