Dell's quarterly profits take a dive

Computer giant Dell saw its profits dive 33% in its first financial quarter of 2013 as consumer and large enterprise sales fell 12% and 3% respectively.

Total sales in the quarter were worth $14.4bn compared to $15bn in the same quarter last year, showing a fall of 4%. EMEA sales fell 1%.

Dell CFO Brian Gladden highlighted the company’s poor performance in Europe.

“Clearly we are seeing a bit more challenging demand environment," he said. 

"Europe, in general, was down for us."

The company expects the next three-month period to show an increase in sales of 2% and 4%.

Large enterprise sales fell 3% to $4.4bn in the quarter.

Public sector sales were down 4% to $3.5bn.

SME sales increased 4% to $3.5bn.

Enterprise solutions and services sales increased 17%, with services revenue growing 23% and sales of servers and networks growing 16%.

Consumer revenue fell12% to $3bn.

Gladden said the first quarter fell well short of expectations. 

“There were some areas where our execution was not as expected, and there also are some market dynamics that created some headwinds for us,” said Gladden.