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Dell reports Q3 earnings, enterprise division rakes in record $4.7 billion

Dell's PC business may be on the decline, in fact its consumer division saw revenues drop 6 percent, but its business business is making up for it. The company's enterprise solutions and services unit took in a record $4.7 billion in revenue this quarter, a jump of 8 percent over the same time last year. The same department also saw operating income climb 12 percent in the same period. All told, Dell took in $15.4 billion in the third quarter, which is about the same as a year or go -- give or take a few million bucks. However profits were up 12 percent over last year to $983 million. So while there doesn't seem to be a huge influx of new cash coming in, it does appear that Dell is managing what it has just fine. Check out the full report after the break.

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Dell Reports Strong Profitability in Third Quarter

Date : 11/15/2011

Earnings per share of $0.49 (GAAP) and $0.54 (non-GAAP) up 17 and 20 percent, respectively; Operating Income up 12 percent (GAAP); up 10 percent (non-GAAP)
Enterprise solutions and services revenue at all-time high of $4.7 billion
Cash flow from operations for the quarter was $851 million and $5.2 billion for the past four quarters

Dell's continued strategic focus on higher-value opportunities, combined with an increased mix of enterprise solutions and services sales, resulted in increased profitability on revenue of $15.4 billion in its third quarter, flat compared with revenue a year ago.

"Our results this quarter and over the past year reflect a new Dell, one focused on providing our customers productivity-enhancing solutions either developed organically or acquired," said Michael Dell, chairman and CEO. "We're now investing in research and development activities at almost a billion-dollar annual run rate and our earnings per share is up 86 percent over the last 12 months."

Revenue for Dell's enterprise solutions and services business – including sales of servers, storage, networking, and services – increased 8 percent over the same quarter last year to $4.7 billion, an all-time high. As the revenue mix steadily shifts more to the higher-value enterprise portfolio, Dell is delivering on its commitment to improve profitability, with operating income up 12 percent for the quarter and at 7.6 percent of revenue for the fiscal year to date.

"We delivered strong third-quarter results, maintaining our focus on operating income and improving our mix of higher-value enterprise solutions," said Brian Gladden, Dell chief financial officer. "Consistent with our strategy and the investments we have made, we continued to see excellent momentum in our enterprise business, with double-digit revenue growth in services, servers and networking, and in key growth countries, despite some macroeconomic uncertainty."

Results:

Revenue in the quarter was $15.4 billion, flat compared with the same quarter last year.
GAAP earnings per share was 49 cents, up 17 percent; non-GAAP EPS was 54 cents, up 20 percent.
GAAP operating income was $1.1 billion, or 7.4 percent of revenue. Non-GAAP operating income was $1.3 billion, or 8.4 percent of revenue.
Cash flow from operations was $851 million for the quarter and $5.2 billion over the last four quarters. Dell ended the quarter with $16 billion in cash and investments and repurchased $600 million in stock in the quarter. For the year, Dell has spent $2.18 billion to purchase 142 million shares of Dell stock.


Fiscal-Year 2012 Third Quarter and Year-To-Date Highlights


Third Quarter Fiscal Year-to-Date

(in millions) FY12 FY11 Change FY12 FY11 Change
Revenue $15,365 $15,394 0% $46,040 $45,802 1%

Operating Income (GAAP) $1,142 $1,024 12% $3,500 $2,288 53%
Net Income (GAAP) $893 $822 9% $2,728 $1,708 60%
EPS (GAAP) $0.49 $0.42 17% $1.46 $0.87 68%

Operating Income (non-GAAP) $1,288 $1,167 10% $3,992 $2,863 39%
Net Income (non-GAAP) $983 $875 12% $3,039 $2,088 46%
EPS (non-GAAP $0.54 $0.45 20% $1.62 $1.06 53%

Information about Dell's use of non-GAAP financial information is provided under "Non-GAAP Financial Measures" below. Non-GAAP financial information excludes costs related primarily to the amortization of purchased intangibles, severance and facility-action costs, certain settlement costs and acquisition-related charges. All comparisons in this press release are year over year unless otherwise noted.

Strategic Highlights:

Enterprise solutions and services revenue was $4.7 billion in the quarter and represented 31 percent of Dell's revenue.
Server and networking revenue increased 13 percent year over year, driven by continued momentum in server virtualization. Dell is working with customers to provide mission-critical services and solutions around the server, creating competitive differentiation, richer configurations and stronger profitability.
Dell-branded storage revenue grew 23 percent year over year, driven by demand for EqualLogic and Compellent technology.
Dell Services revenue grew 10 percent to $2.1 billion and now represents 14 percent of Dell's business. Dell's total value of new services contracts signed for the past 12 months is $1.9 billion. Services backlog is now $15.5 billion, up 11 percent from a year ago.

Business Units and Regions:

Large Enterprise had $4.5 billion of revenue, up 4 percent from a year ago on a 19 percent increase in revenue for servers and networking and a 14 percent increase in revenue for services. Enterprise solutions and services revenue was $1.9 billion. Operating income was $441 million, or 9.8 percent of revenue.
Public had $4.4 billion of revenue, down 2 percent from a year ago, and including an increase in services revenue of 7 percent. Operating income was $463 million or 10.6 percent of revenue. Enterprise solutions and services revenue was $1.6 billion. Spending was slow in U.S. federal and Western Europe. Customers continue to invest in our solutions to reduce spending and increase productivity.
Small and Medium Business had revenue of $3.7 billion, up 1 percent. Operating income was $386 million or 10.4 percent of revenue. Enterprise solutions and services revenue was $1.1 billion, an all-time high, and up 18 percent, driven by a gain in servers of 18 percent; services of 23 percent, and storage of 9 percent.
Consumer revenue was $2.8 billion, a 6 percent decline. Operating income was $76 million or 2.7 percent of revenue. The migration to higher-value products has proven to be effective, with overall company revenue for the high-end XPS consumer laptop growing 207 percent. XPS revenue now accounts for nearly 20 percent of Dell's total consumer laptop business.
Internationally, revenue in growth countries – defined as those outside the U.S., Canada, Western Europe and Japan – grew 11 percent in the third quarter and is up 14 percent for the fiscal year. These geographies account for 29 percent of Dell's revenue. Regionally, Asia Pacific and Japan had the greatest revenue growth at 10 percent, led by China's 23 percent growth and Australia/New Zealand's 13 percent increase. EMEA revenue increased 4 percent. Revenue in European growth countries increased 12 percent, led by the Czech Republic, Poland and Russia. Revenue in BRIC countries increased 14 percent.

Company Outlook:

Dell has delivered $5.3 billion in operating income on a trailing, 12-month basis, and a 44-percent increase year-over-year on a non-GAAP basis. The company remains committed to its strategy and is on track to exceed its guidance of 17 to 23 percent full fiscal-year operating income growth.

Given the uncertain macroeconomic environment and complexity in working through the industry-wide hard drive issue, the company is trending to the lower end of the range of its revenue outlook of 1 to 5-percent full fiscal-year growth.

Results through Q3 show that Dell is on track for another outstanding year. The company has made significant progress in building a more diversified and competitive set of enterprise and services-focused businesses that now represent almost 50 percent of its margin.

About Dell
Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services that give them the power to do more. For more information, visit www.dell.com. T he third quarter a nalyst call with Michael Dell, chairman and CEO; Brian Gladden, CFO; and Jeff Clarke, vice chairman, Global Operations & End User Computing Solutions, will be webcast live today at 4 p.m. CST and archived at www.dell.com/investor. To monitor highlighted facts from the analyst call, follow on the Dell Investor Relations Twitter account at: http://twitter.com/dellshares or hashtag #DellEarnings. To communicate directly with Dell, go to www.dell.com/dellshares.


Non-GAAP Financial Measures:

This press release includes information about non-GAAP operating income, non-GAAP net income, and non-GAAP earnings per share (collectively with non-GAAP gross margin and non-GAAP operating expenses, the "non-GAAP financial measures"), which are not measurements of financial performance prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. In the following tables, Dell has provided a reconciliation of each historical non-GAAP financial measure to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure under the heading "Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures" and has presented a detailed discussion of its reasons for including the non-GAAP financial measures and the limitations associated with those measures under the heading "Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures." Dell encourages investors to review the reconciliation and the non-GAAP discussion in conjunction with Dell's presentation of these non-GAAP financial measures.

Special Note on Forward Looking Statements:

Statements in this press release that relate to future results and events (including statements about Dell's future financial and operating performance, trends relating to enterprise, solutions and services, Dell's strategies and spending relating to investments and research and development, anticipated customer demand, global macroeconomic uncertainty, geographic trends, operating expense strategies, and hard drive and other component supply, as well as the financial guidance with respect to revenue and non-GAAP operating income) are forward-looking statements and are based on Dell's current expectations. In some cases, you can identify these statements by such forward-looking words as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "confidence," "may," "plan," "potential," "should," "will" and "would," or similar expressions. Actual results and events in future periods may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements because of a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors, including: intense competition; Dell's cost-cutting measures; Dell's ability to effectively manage the growth of its distribution capabilities and add to its product and services offerings; Dell's ability to effectively manage periodic product and services transitions; weak global economic conditions and instability in financial markets; Dell's ability to generate substantial non-U.S. net revenue; weak economic conditions and additional regulation affecting Dell's financial services activities; Dell's ability to achieve favorable pricing from its vendors; Dell's ability to deliver consistent quality products and services; Dell's reliance on third-party suppliers for product components, including reliance on several single-sourced or limited-sourced suppliers; successful implementation of Dell's acquisition strategy; Dell's product, customer, and geographic sales mix, and seasonal sales trends; access to the capital markets by Dell or its customers; loss of government contracts; the risk of temporary suspension or debarment from contracting with U.S. federal, state and local governments as a result of settlements of an SEC investigation by Dell and Dell's Chairman and CEO; customer terminations of or pricing changes in services contracts, or Dell's failure to perform as it anticipates at the time it enters into services contracts; Dell's ability to obtain licenses to intellectual property developed by others on commercially reasonable and competitive terms; information technology and manufacturing infrastructure disruptions or breaches of data security; Dell's ability to hedge effectively its exposure to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates and interest rates; counterparty default; unfavorable results of legal proceedings; expiration of tax holidays or favorable tax rate structures, or unfavorable outcomes in tax audits and other compliance matters; Dell's ability to attract, retain, and motivate key personnel; Dell's ability to maintain strong internal controls; changing environmental and safety laws; the effect of armed hostilities, terrorism, natural disasters, and public health issues; and other risks and uncertainties discussed in Dell's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for its fiscal year ended Jan. 28, 2011. In particular, Dell's expectations with regard to revenue and non-GAAP operating income for the full fiscal year ending Feb. 3, 2012 assume, among other matters, that there is no significant decline in economic conditions generally or demand growth specifically, that macroeconomic uncertainties do not materialize into significant economic difficulties, that Dell is able to adequately address hard drive supply challenges, no significant change in product mix patterns, continued geographic customer demand trends, continued successful demand planning and forecasting, no supply chain disruptions, and no significant adverse component pricing or supply movements. Dell assumes no obligation to update its forward-looking statements.

Consolidated statements of income, financial position and cash flows and other financial data follow.

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