Dell beats revenue estimates as remote working lifts workstation demand

Dell Technologies Inc beat analysts' estimates for quarterly revenue on Thursday, boosted by demand for its workstations from companies moving more employees to work from home due to the coronavirus crisis.

REUTERS: Dell Technologies Inc beat analysts' estimates for quarterly revenue on Thursday, boosted by demand for its workstations from companies moving more employees to work from home due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Shares of the company rose 8.3per cent to US$49.38 in extended trading.

Revenue from client solutions group, that accounts for half of the revenue and includes desktop PCs, notebooks and tablets, rose 2per cent to US$11.1 billion in its fiscal first quarter.

Commercial notebooks reported double-digit unit and revenue growth, while mobile workstations posted high-single-digit revenue growth, the company said.

"In Q1, we saw orders with banking and financial services, government, healthcare and life sciences customers up 15per cent to 20per cent," Chief Operating Officer Jeff Clarke said in a statement.

But higher spending by companies towards enabling remote work, as well as weak demand in China weighed on Dell's data center business.

Revenue in that business fell 8per cent to US$7.57 billion in the three months ended May 1.

Total revenue fell marginally to US$21.90 billion, but topped estimates of US$20.81 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Net income attributable to the company fell to US$143 million, from US$293 million a year earlier.

Dell in March scrapped its financial year 2021 forecast due to uncertainty over the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

Sales from its software unit VMware jumped 12per cent to US$2.76 billion.

(Reporting by Neha Malara in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Munsif Vengattil; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Amy Caren Daniel)