Dell shares slip as results fail to beat expectations

Dell Computer saw its shares slip as quarterly figures matched but failed to beat expectations. The leading PC manufacturer reported higher quarterly profit and revenue, but had been expected to do even better.

Dell said its net profit in the three months to the end of April rose to $598 million (€520 million), or 23 US cents per share, from a year earlier's $457 million, or 17 US cents.

It said sales rose to $9.53 billion from $8.07 billion in the same period last year.

The company's Irish operation, which employs 4,300 people in Limerick and Wicklow, continued to outperform, according to country manager Mr Tim McCarthy.

Limerick is the manufacturing base for the group's Europe, Middle East and Africa operations and saw unit shipments 29 per cent ahead of the same period last year.

"Limerick is the most productive facility in the world for Dell and is significant in maintaining the company's position in Europe," said Mr McCarthy.

Dell, which knocked rival Hewlett-Packard from top spot during the first calendar quarter, said it expected second-quarter revenue to rise 15 per cent from a year ago to more than $9.7 billion, with earnings of 24 US cents per share compared with a year ago's 19 cents.

Analysts said the company needed to indicate faster growth than that to justify the recent rise in its stock to levels not seen in more than two and a half years.

"As excellent as the results were across the board, there was no meaningful upside in any of the categories, nor was there upside in the guidance," said Mr Richard Chu, an analyst at SG Cowen. He has an "outperform" rating on the stock and hasn't done any investment banking for Dell.

Dell has diversified its business away from PCs to include computer servers and data storage.

The company has also broken into the printer market, the networking market and sells handheld computers.

This summer, it will ask shareholders to change its name from Dell Computer to Dell to reflect that change.

Dell also said it sees shipments of its computers rising 25 per cent in the second quarter compared with a year earlier.

Speaking on a conference call with journalists, Dell chief financial officer Mr Jim Schneider said the technology market had stabilised but that there were no signs of a recovery.

"While overall industry demand has increased slightly for the past three quarters, we don't expect significant near-term improvement in economic or industry conditions," Mr Schneider said.

He added that the company planned to make up for the lack of industry growth by gaining market share over its rivals. - (Additional reporting, Reuters)