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DELL Q3 Earnings Beat Estimates, Lower Storage Hurt Revenues

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Dell Technologies (DELL - Free Report) reported third-quarter fiscal 2024 non-GAAP earnings of $1.88 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 27.89%. The bottom line declined 18% year over year.

Revenues, on a non-GAAP basis, decreased 10% year over year to $22.25 billion and lagged the consensus mark by 2.91%. Recurring revenues increased 4% year over year to $5.6 billion.

Product revenues decreased 14% year over year to $16.23 billion. The company witnessed increased pricing pressure in the reported quarter.

Services revenues rose 4% year over year to $6.02 billion.

Dell Technologies Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Dell Technologies Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Dell Technologies Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Dell Technologies Inc. Quote

Dell shares were down 5.48% in after-hours trading following the results. Shares have gained 88.6% year to date compared with the Zacks Computer & Technology sector’s return of 45.1%.

Top-Line Detail

Infrastructure Solutions Group (“ISG”) revenues declined 12% year over year to $8.499 billion.

The downside can be attributed to a 10% decrease in servers and networking revenues that totaled $4.66 billion. Storage revenues fell 13% year over year to $3.84 billion.

Orders roughly doubled sequentially and increased to approximately 33% of Dell’s server orders revenues in the reported quarter.

AI-optimized server backlog approximately doubled on a sequential basis. Dell’s multi-billion-dollar sales pipeline is substantially higher compared with the end of the fiscal second quarter.

Client Solutions Group (“CSG”) revenues were $12.28 billion, down 11% year over year. Commercial revenues declined 8% year over year to $9.84 billion. Consumer revenues were down 19% to $2.44 billion.

Operating Details

Dell’s fiscal third-quarter non-GAAP gross profit decreased 10% year over year to $5.28 billion. The gross margin stayed at 23.7%.

SG&A expenses declined 15% year over year to $3.27 billion. Research and development expenses were up 4% year over year to $677 million in the reported quarter.

Non-GAAP operating expenses decreased 5% year over year to $3.31 billion. Operating expenses, as a percentage of revenues, increased 80 bps on a year-over-year basis to 14.9%.

The non-GAAP operating income was $1.96 billion, down 17% year over year. The operating margin contracted 80 bps year over year to 8.8%.

The ISG segment’s operating income decreased 22% year over year to $1.07 billion. Meanwhile, the CSG segment’s operating income was $925 million, down 13% year over year.

Balance Sheet

As of Nov 3, 2023, DELL had $8.298 billion in cash and cash equivalents.

Debt was $26.617 billion as of Nov 3, 2023.

The company generated a cash flow of $2.2 billion in the fiscal third quarter.

Dell returned $744 million to its shareholders through share repurchases and paid $266 million in dividends.

Guidance

For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, revenues are expected between $21.5 billion and $22.5 billion.

Sequentially, Dell expects ISG revenues to increase mid-single digits, driven by sequential growth in traditional servers and seasonal growth in storage. It expects CSG revenues to be down low-single digits sequentially.

Earnings are expected to be $1.70 per share (+/- 10 cents).

For fiscal 2024, earnings are expected to be $6.63 per share (+/- 10 cents).

Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider

Dell currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

ASANA (ASAN - Free Report) , Science Applications International (SAIC - Free Report) and Adobe (ADBE - Free Report) are some better-ranked stocks that investors can consider in the broader sector, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

ASANA shares have gained 48.9% year to date. ASAN is set to report its third-quarter fiscal 2024 results on Dec 5.

Science Applications International shares have declined 5.8% year to date. SAIC is set to report its third-quarter fiscal 2024 results on Dec 4.

Adobe shares have returned 81.5% year to date. ADBE is set to report its fourth-quarter fiscal 2023 results on Dec 13.

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