“Dell Inc. said Thursday that its fiscal second-quarter earnings fell 17% from a year ago even as revenue topped $16 billion, as the company said its margins were hurt by efforts to build out its consumer product lines and overseas markets,” Rex Crum reports for MarketWatch.
“Dell said it earned $616 million, or 31 cents a share, on revenue of $16.43 billion, compared to a profit of $746 million, or 33 cents a share, on $14.78 billion in sales in the year-ago quarter. Analysts surveyed by FactSet Research had forecast Dell to earn 36 cents a share on $15.97 billion in sales,” Crum reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Boy, Mikey, that’s a lot of effort! $16.43 billion just to make $616 million? That’s quite the contrast from Apple which recently posted revenue of $7.46 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.07 billion for the quarter ended June 28, 2008. In other words, Dell has to generate 2.2 times the revenue just to make 58% of Apple’s profit. Not good.
It’s here. The beleaguered Dell, Inc. Twice the work. Half the profit. (Zing!)
Crum continues, “Dell didn’t give a third-quarter forecast, saying only that the company ‘sees continued conservatism in IT spending in the U.S.,’ which has begun to spread into Western Europe and parts of Asia.”
Full article here.
Ben Rooney reports for CNNMoney that Wall Street is “concerned about the company’s dwindling margins.”
“Dell’s gross margin was 17.2% in the quarter, down from nearly 20% a year ago. Gross margins measure a company’s profit after subtracting the cost of sales as a percentage of total revenue and is widely used by tech analysts as a benchmark for a company’s financial health,” Rooney reports. “‘Revenue was strong but margins were poor,” said Shaw Wu, an analyst at American Technology Research.”
Rooney reports, “Wu said Dell’s margins are probably being squeezed by a ‘lower-end mix,’ as the company used special promotions and other price reductions to entice customers to buy its computers.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Keep squeezing those margins, Mikey. Until there’s nothing left. Does anyone have a solution for Mr. Dell?
Shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders!
SIDAGTMBTTS!
(Shut It Down and Give the Money Back to the Shareholders!)
Right on cue, Mr. Mertz!
Isn’t Dell expecting a profit soon from its newest division, Psystar?
I concur:
Shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders!
You ladies can gloat, chortle and be all smug-like but Dell’s being down 10 percent in after hours is going to drag the entire Nasdaq tomorrow and AAPL with it, too. Down under 170, I predict.
So so sad.
Where is the asshole claiming “Apple Tax” at now? It is called profit. When you have a great product, people will pay for it because IT IS WORTH IT! Paying little, and getting shit is just wasting money. Buy a quality product, and you will have to pay for it, and be happy. Buy shit, pay less for it… put up with crap. This is the exact reason I did not buy another Chevy again.
The Dude abides.
@Ms. Dell,
Even if AAPL drops below $170, which I doubt will happen, big chicken fried deal!
Michael Dell is the poster boy for mediocrity.
Mr. Dell,
Thanks for the buying opportunity. For AAPL, that is. Only a fool would invest in a dying PC box assembler that can’t run Mac OS X.
What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders, you brillo-haired, cross-eyed, globe-headed fuck.
We’ll make it up in volume. Or not.
SIDAGTMBTTS!
Ding dong Dell, things aren’t going well.
Oh, shit – that photo of Dell, the headline, and this:
It’s here. The beleaguered Dell, Inc. Twice the work. Half the profit. (Zing!)
Laughing my ass off right now!!!
Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it?
“Be kind to people on the way up, because those are the same people you’ll run into on your way down.” That’s how I was raised; Mikey-boy, not so much.
Oh, well. Another one-trick-pony who’s done his trick. Nothing else to see here.
Peace.
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Olmecmystic
P.S. And what’s with that picture of him? Doesn’t he look mystified, like “WTF is going on?”
Anyone who didn’t see this happening has to be blind. Once they started selling their computers in Wal-Mart and Staples, margins would have to go down to allow room for the retailers to make some profit. By abandoning their direct sales model, I think they doomed themselves. Before long, they will be like Gateway.
Never mind, it will all be fixed now they emply Rob Enderle to show them how to beat Apple..
But doesn’t Dell have that cool new PMP player coming out..that’ll turn things around.
And why is Dell wanting to spend the money to get in to the portable Music player market again?
dell just began selling 250 dollar computers in India and China and if this quarter is any indication of what the next one will be like, it means even smaller profit margins.
Dollars to donuts, the Chinese buy up dell just like they bought out IBM’s PC business.
hahahaha..i love mdn =)
“Dollars to donuts . . .”
You just got Rob Glaser’s attention.
Dell figured out how to squeeze margins, logistics, warehousing, suppliers, etc., before everyone else in the internet age.
But then everyone else figured out how to do the same thing.
So why do we need Dell anymore?
My solution: Keep hiring the best like Enderle and keep the company going until someone else has to shut it down and there is no money left to give to the shareholders.
LOOHTL
(Last one out, hit the lights)