Dell Revenues Fall 20 Percent, But Beat Expectations

Dell posted its largest-ever quarterly revenue drop in its history, but the results beat expectations, driving the company’s stock upward. It reported a net income of $578 million on revenues of $20.9 billion; those figures represent year-over-year (YOY) drops of 46 percent and 20 percent.

“We executed well against a challenging economic backdrop,” Dell co-COO Chuck Whitten said. “We maintained pricing discipline, reduced operating expenses, and our supply chain continued to perform well after normalizing ahead of competitors. We announced a record number of innovations, making good on our promise to extend Dell APEX as-a-Service capabilities across our full portfolio and simplifying multi-cloud and edge computing for our customers.”

In line with other PC makers, Dell’s PC business—called the Client Solutions Group—posted revenues of $12 billion in the quarter, a drop of 23 percent YOY. Commercial PC revenues were better than expected at $9.9 billion while consumer PC revenue was $2.1 billion.

Dell released its results an hour early, and before the market closed, because a media publication broke an embargo. The early release triggered a temporary halt in trading, but Dell’s stock price jumped 4 percent when trading resumed.