Dell's fourth-quarter sales and profits were both down in results released today, though profits were a cent per share higher than reduced expectations. AP sums it up:
Dell said it earned $673 million, or 30 cents per share in the quarter ended Feb. 2, compared to $1.01 billion, or 43 cents per share a year earlier. Revenue fell 4 percent, to $14.4 billion.
As The New York Times added:
No one was expecting a good quarter as evidence mounted that Dell's PC sales were flagging. IDC, the technology market analysts, reported that Dell's worldwide shipments in the fourth quarter dropped 8.4 percent while they grew 8.7 percent overall for the industry. It also said Hewlett-Packard surpassed Dell as the world's biggest PC maker as its shipments grew 23.8 percent in the final three months of the 2006.
Dell was caught out as rivals such as HP sold stocks of Windows XP machines, before the release of Windows Vista, and by the continuing shift away from desktop PCs to notebooks. Dell-style customisation is much less important in the notebook PC market. Also, customers can easily pick up a notebook PC on the high street, rather than order a Dell they've not even seen.
