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Dell reported a drop in earnings per share and revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013 and for the full year.

 

The company's CFO Brian Gladden put Dell's best foot forward in his comments on the results, highlighting areas where the company made improvements. “We continued to execute our long-term strategy in Q4, and realized a 6% increase in our enterprise solutions and services business,” he said.
 
He also mentioned the acquisitions Dell has made during the year. “Our strong balance sheet and cash position enabled the company to invest almost $5bn in new capabilities and intellectual property this fiscal year, including great assets like Quest, SonicWall, Wyse and AppAssure.”

 

Dell's fourth-quarter revenue was US$14.3bn, down 11% year over year. The company's net income was $530m, down 31% when compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012.

 

Net income translated into earnings per share (EPS) of $0.43, or 30% down year over year.

 

For the full fiscal 2013, Dell reported about $57bn in sales, down 8% year over year. Its full-year EPS were $1.35 – 28% less than in fiscal 2012.

 

Of all products and solutions Dell offers, networking grew the most during the fourth quarter, reporting a 42% year-over-year revenue increase.

 

Server revenue grew 5%, driven by solution sales to operators of hyper-scale data centers and migration to 12th-generation servers released in February of calendar year 2012. These latest-generation servers are now responsible for 80% of the company's server revenue and sell at higher prices and margins than previous-generation machines do.

 

Dell's desktop and mobility products fared the worst, with revenue declining 20%.

 

The publicly traded company is in the process of converting into a privately-owned one. Earlier this month, it announced that its founder and CEO Michael Dell had teamed up with private-equity firm Silver Lake and a group of other investors, including Microsoft, to buy the company out for a total of $24.4bn.