Dell Technologies prints an 18% annualised growth in Q2 consumer sales

Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE: DELL) said on Thursday that its revenue and earnings in the fiscal second quarter topped Wall Street estimates. CFO Tom Sweet attributed the company’s stronger than expected performance to the Coronavirus pandemic that fuelled demand from the government, educational institutes, and individual consumers, for remote working and learning solutions as businesses resorted to work from home arrangements in recent months.

COVID-19 has so far infected more than 6 million people in the United States and caused over 184 thousand deaths. In related news, Dell’s peer, VMware, in which Dell has an 81% stake, also published its quarterly earnings report on Thursday.

Dell’s Q2 financial results versus analysts’ estimates

Dell said that its net income in the fiscal second quarter came in at £830 million that translates to £1.04 per share. In the comparable quarter of 2019, its net income was recorded at a much higher £3.18 billion or £3.39 per share.

On an adjusted basis, the technology company reported £1.45 of earnings per share. In terms of revenue, it saw a decline to £17.20 billion in Q2 from the year-ago figure of £17.73 billion. Dell said in June that it was considering spinning off its stake in VMware. Dell’s stake in VMware is valued at £37.88 billion.

But its consumer sales, as per Dell, registered an 18% annualised growth in the recent quarter to £2.42 billion. Sales of both gaming systems and notebooks, it added, posted double-digit growth in the second quarter.

According to FactSet, experts had anticipated the company to print £17.03 billion in revenue in the fiscal second quarter. Their estimate was earnings per share was capped at £1.05 per share.

Dell’s performance in the stock market

Shares of the company were reported a little under 2% up in extended trading on Thursday. Dell is currently exchanging hands at £48.26 per share. In comparison, it had tanked to as low as £21.87 per share in March due to COVID-19 disruptions. At the start of the year, the Round Rock-based company had a per-share price of £39.61.

Dell’s performance in the stock market was reported fairly upbeat in 2019 with an annual gain of more than 10%. At the time of writing, the American multinational technology company has a market cap of £35 billion and a price to earnings ratio of 10.50.