Dallas – Dell Inc. said Thursday that net income rose 52 percent as the world’s largest personal-computer maker was helped by an extra week in its fourth quarter and by strong sales to businesses and international customers.
The company also trimmed its outlook, and shares slipped in late trading.
Dell earned $1.01 billion, or 43 cents per share, in the quarter ended Feb. 3, compared with $667 million, or 26 cents per share, a year earlier.
Analysts had expected the PC maker to earn 41 cents per share in the most recent quarter, according to a survey by Thomson Financial.
Revenue rose 13 percent to a record $15.18 billion, exceeding the $14.82 billion forecast of analysts. Sales outside the United States increased 21 percent, compared with 10 percent in the U.S. market.
Round Rock, Texas-based Dell said first-quarter earnings would be 39 cents to 41 cents per share, excluding a cost of 3 cents per share for stock compensation. Analysts had forecast 42 cents per share.
The company also said first-quarter sales would be $14.2 billion to $14.6 billion, slightly below analysts’ prediction of $14.73 billion. Chief executive Kevin Rollins said it was just a typical post-holiday slowdown in the technology sector.
“We are not seeing anything fundamentally that’s slowing the market down,” Rollins said. “We just think … with the normal seasonality changes and the size of our company, this is a good forecast for the market.”
Dell’s forecast would call for a first-quarter sales gain of 6 percent to 9 percent over early 2005, below the company’s pattern of double-digit increases.
Increasingly, Dell’s growth is coming from outside the United States, mostly in Asia and Europe. Dell executives say that trend is likely to continue because the company has more room to grow overseas – its share of the U.S. PC market is around 30 percent but only about 10 percent in Asia and Europe.
