Despite a chorus of claims from the tech industry that spending in the sector appear to be on the rise, Dell reported a 54 percent dip in net income and 15 percent drop off in revenue.
Dell came out of the third quarter with $337 million, as compared to the $727 million at this time last year.
Earnings per share slipped from 37 cents to 17 cents in the same period. Revenue was hard hit as well, under performing on analyst predictions and falling to $12.90 billion from $15.16 billion.
Still, Dell remains hopeful, hoping its slow burning turnaround plan will come through. The company intends to stay focused on keeping profits high and strengthening its balance sheet even if that means being outsold by competitors for the time being. Once that’s established, they will move toward a more aggressively pursuing the recovery.
Rival tech companies I.B.M., Google, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco are already moving toward that, over-achieving on analysts’ predictions for the quarter.
Chief executive and founder Michael Dell sees this as indicative of the sector’s health. “We are seeing improvement in overall underlying I.T. demand that is continuing into the fourth quarter,” he said in a statement.
Dell is hoping that the release of Windows 7 will prompt businesses, which they rely on more than competitors; invest in a new PC once they are secure enough in recession recovery to increase tech budgets.
For the time being though, Dell is suffering. During its third quarter, product sales dipped for all of its major businesses with PC sales dropping 26 percent and lap tops slipping 14 percent.
Shares of the company slipped roughly 1 percent, to $15.87 on Thursday after third quarter results were released only to drop another 9 percent, to $14.63, in after-hours trading.
