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Reuters
Dell profit misses estimates, shares fall
Thursday February 28, 4:41 pm ET


SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Dell Inc (NasdaqGS:DELL - News), the world's second-largest personal computer maker, on Thursday posted a lower-than-expected quarterly profit and cautioned that customers may rein in spending, sending its shares 4 percent lower.
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Net income in the three months ended February 1 fell to $679 million, or 31 cents per share, from $726 million, or 32 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue rose to $16 billion from $14.5 billion.

Dell earned 34 cents per share, excluding costs for jobs cuts, research, legal expenses and other items. Analysts expected profit on that basis of 36 cents per share and revenue of $16.3 billion, according to averages on Reuters Estimates.

Dell said it would "continue to incur costs as it realigns its business to improve growth and profitability," efforts that may "adversely impact" near-term results.

Dell said revenue from laptop computers rose 24 percent in the fourth quarter from a year ago and revenue from server computers and data storage gear each advanced 2 percent. Desktop computer revenue rose 2 percent.

Gross profit margin widened to 18.8 percent from 18.5 percent in Dell's fiscal third quarter. But operating margin narrowed to 4.9 percent from the third quarter's 5.3 percent, as costs rose.

Dell, based in Round Rock, Texas, is more dependent than HP and International Business Machines Corp (NYSE:IBM - News) on the United States, which many economists believe is in or near a recession and where consumer and corporate spending on technology is expected to slow this year.

Dell shares have fallen 26 percent since its third-quarter earnings report on November 29, more than twice the decline of the Nasdaq Composite index (Nasdaq:^IXIC - News) and far worse than HP's 5 percent drop. Dell is trading at 12.8 times expected 2008 earnings per share, a discount to HP's multiple of about 14.

(Reporting by Philipp Gollner and Duncan Martell