Dell Sails Past Estimates (DELL)

Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) came out with a solid quarter today after the close, and shares are seeing some after-hours love.  The company showed $0.38 EPS on $16.08 Billion in revenues.  First Call had already slightly lifted its numbers, but estimates were $0.34 EPS on $15.68 Billion in revenues.

The company said it still continues realigning its business and still expects a headcount reduction with a $3 Billion savings target by 2011.  It has cut 7,000 jobs over the last year, and about 3,700 of those were in the first quarter.

Dell did issue $1.5 billion in private placement and medium-term and long-term notes for general corporate purposes. The company spent over $1 billion to repurchase some 52 million shares of stock and the company noted that plans to spend at least $1 billion on additional share buybacks in the second quarter as well.  The company ended the quarter with $9.8 billion in cash and equivalents and its weighted average shares were 2.04 billion.

Leading the charge were the following gains:

• Product shipments rose 22%, with servers growing 3-times the industry rate at 21%.
• Storage revenue rose some 15% and enhanced services revenue was up 13%.
• Notebook unit growth rose a whopping 43%, up about 1.2-times the industry growth rate.

Shares of Dell are up $1.50 in after hours trading at $23.31, and that is after a regular close of up 0.55% at $21.81.

Jon C. Ogg
May 29, 2008