Dell Technologies forecast fourth-quarter revenue and earnings below Wall Street expectations Tuesday, despite bullish commentary from the company on AI sales growth. The PC maker reported quarterly earnings Tuesday that beat analyst expectations for earnings per share but came up light on overall revenue.
Shares fell 10% in after-hours trading.
Here’s how Dell did for the fiscal third quarter versus LSEG consensus estimates for the quarter ending Nov. 1:
- Earnings per share: $2.15 adjusted versus $2.06 expected
- Revenue: $24.4 billion versus $24.67 billion expected
Net income climbed 12% to $1.12 billion, or $1.58 per share, from about $1 billion, or $1.36 per share, in the year-ago period. Overall revenue increased about 10% from $22.25 billion a year ago.
Dell said it expected between $24 billion and $25 billion in revenue during the fourth quarter, less than LSEG expectations of $25.57 billion. It said it expected $2.50 in adjusted earnings per share, versus expectations of $2.65 per share.
Chief Operating Officer Jeff Clark told investors on the earnings call that growth from AI will change from quarter to quarter.
“This business will not be linear, especially as customers navigate an underlying silicon roadmap that is changing,” Clark said.
The company’s shares have risen 86% so far in 2024 as investors realize it’s one of the most important companies selling tools and systems for artificial intelligence developers.
Dell is a top vendor for computer clusters required to develop and deploy artificial intelligence, especially computers based around Nvidia chips. It competes against other server makers such as Super Micro Computer and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, as well as manufacturers in Asia.
Demand for Nvidia’s AI accelerators remains high from cloud providers, enterprises, and government institutions, who often buy systems installed with tens of thousands of AI chips. Dell sells the completed systems.
In March, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang gave Dell and its founder, Michael Dell, a shout-out as the company to contact to place orders for its new Blackwell AI chips.
Dell executives said some of the demand from its customers was shifting to later quarters, waiting for Nvidia’s next-generation Blackwell chips, which are in production now but have yet to ship to end-users in large quantities.
“We saw in Q3 a pretty rapid shift of the orders moving towards our Blackwell design,” Clark said.
Dell said much of its AI system growth was already reflected in a $4.5 billion pipeline of future orders.
“We’re only in the very early innings of enterprises learning how to deploy AI,” Clark said.
Dell’s AI server sales are reported in the company’s Infrastructure Solutions Group, which includes AI servers, storage, networking components, and traditional servers. The group’s revenue rose 34%, mostly driven by AI sales, to $11.4 billion.
The strongest part of Dell’s ISG business was its servers and networking subsidiary, which includes AI systems. Revenue rose 58% to $7.4 billion. Dell shipped $2.9 billion in AI servers during the quarter, and the company said during the quarter that customers had booked $3.6 billion of future AI server orders.
The company said increased AI server orders boosted demand by “double digits” for its traditional servers, which are less power-hungry and based around CPU chips from Intel or AMD, and can free up room or power inside data centers for companies investing heavily in AI infrastructure.
The company’s computer storage systems grew less strongly than servers, rising 4% to $4 billion. The overall ISG unit is more profitable, thanks to sales of pricier AI systems.
Dell’s Client Solutions Group, which sells PCs and laptops to consumers and enterprises, declined 1% on an annual basis to $12.1 billion.
While commercial clients buying PCs for their workforces rose 3% on an annual basis to $10.1 billion, the company’s sales from PCs to consumers fell 18% on an annual basis to $2 billion.