Dell results disappoint Street, shares dive

(Reuters) – Dell Inc forecast disappointing second-quarter revenue as U.S. and European corporate tech spending weakens and consumer personal computer sales continue to shrink, hammering its shares.

Shares in the company, which like rival Hewlett-Packard Co is losing market share to mobile devices such as Apple Inc’s iPad, dived more than 11 percent in after hours trade.

The world’s No. 3 PC maker forecast a 2 to 4 percent revenue gain this fiscal quarter, to $14.7 billion to $15 billion, well short of the $15.4 billion Wall Street had been expecting.

"Clearly we are seeing a bit more challenging demand environment," Dell Chief Financial Officer Brian Gladden said in an interview. "Europe, in general, was down for us."

Demand from U.S. federal businesses appears to be improving slightly, he noted. "We are seeing a pretty good pipeline there."

Dell’s quarterly revenue fell more than analysts had expected, hurt by weak sales to consumers, large enterprises and government units. PC makers have struggled with slowing demand as mobile devices such as the iPad erode market share.

Brian Marshall, an analyst with ISI Group, said the "real poor results" shows that it will take Dell more time to transform itself from a PC company to a one-stop shop for all the information technology needs of corporations.

"It clearly is disappointing," Shaw Wu, an analyst with Sterne Agee, said. "The expectations heading into the quarter were not even that high."

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Posted by Awais Khan on May 23 2012. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry