Dell, HP Beat Earnings Expectations

Two of the world’s biggest PC makers just had monster quarters, providing an interesting peek at how PC buying has changed.

For the quarter ending October 29, Dell reported a net income of $3.9 billion on revenues of $28.4 billion, year-over-year increases of 341 percent and 21 percent, respectively. The revenue figure was a third-quarter record, Dell said.

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For the quarter ending October 31, HP reported a net income of $3.1 billion on revenues of $16.7 billion, YOY increases of 364 percent and 9.3 percent, respectively.

HP is the world’s second-biggest maker of PCs, behind Lenovo. Dell is the third biggest maker of PCs, but its revenues are higher than HP’s because the firm also sells servers and enterprise services. HP spun off its enterprise business in 2015, forming Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).

Dell reported that its PC shipments grew 26.6 percent YOY, and it expects “continued growth in high-value segments, including commercial PCs, high-end consumer and gaming – which will drive long-term profitable share gains.” Its Client Solutions Group delivered revenues of $16.5 billion, up 35 percent YOY, and most of that comes from commercial customers, which contributed a record $12.3 billion of those revenues, up an “unprecedented” 40 percent.

As for HP, its Personal Systems group delivered $11.8 billion in revenues, up 13 percent YOY. Revenues from consumer PCs decreased 3 percent, while commercial PCs revenues increased 25 percent. Total units sold were down 9 percent with notebooks sales down 12 percent and desktops sales up 2 percent. HP’s Printing group delivered revenues of $4.9 billion, flat with the prior year.

As you probably know, PC sales soared during the pandemic as people were forced to work from home and often needed new equipment; thanks to shortages, customers would buy whatever PCs and peripherals they could find. But a year and a half into the COVID era, PC buying patterns appear to have shifted again, with commercial PC sales once again surging thanks to our hybrid work needs. We can see this shift in both companies’ earnings.

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Conversation 17 comments

  • jimchamplin

    Premium Member
    24 November, 2021 - 2:48 pm

    <p>Her computer is gonna roast on that carpet.</p>

    • proftheory

      Premium Member
      24 November, 2021 - 4:48 pm

      <p>Cat/dog hair will be a bigger problem.</p>

    • polloloco51

      24 November, 2021 - 8:31 pm

      <p>I had a family member, roast a budget Dell Inspiron laptop, on a fabric surface. Thank goodness, it was a $250 laptop, and not a $1,200 Macbook. </p><p><br></p><p>The best case, to always give cheap PCs to students! </p>

      • jimchamplin

        Premium Member
        24 November, 2021 - 10:25 pm

        <p>The best case… Teach your kids about stuff so they don’t do stupid shit like lay computers on fabric. </p><p><br></p><p>If they screw it up? Leave them to deal with it. Bought my sister a Powerbook G3. She ruined it by spilling drink on it because it wasn’t brand new and thought she would get a new computer.</p><p><br></p><p>I had my friend fix it and sent her the bill. She didn’t get a new computer until grad school. She still has it because she learned how to take care of her stuff.</p>

        • wright_is

          Premium Member
          25 November, 2021 - 6:40 am

          <p>Teaching them doesn’t always work, also teach them about backups.</p><p><br></p><p>Bought my daughter a MacBook Pro back when she left school. 5 years later, she was at Uni. I gave her Office 365, with 1TB cloud storage and told her to use it. I gave her USB sticks for local backups.</p><p><br></p><p>She didn’t tell me the USB ports had stopped working. She didn’t use the cloud storage…</p><p><br></p><p>She was on the way home from uni and threw her coffee thermos into her backpack, along with the MBP… Only she forgot to seal the thermos. There was sugary coffee running out of the MBP, a lovely fractal patter on the screen and her dissertation was gone… Hard lessen learnt.</p>

        • polloloco51

          25 November, 2021 - 9:37 am

          <p>I am on the side of:</p><p>Giving kids less expensive laptops. If they take care of it, reward them with a nicer one later on.</p><p><br></p><p>The point I was trying to make, you can buy 4 budget Windows PCs, for the price of a base model Macbook Air. For budget minded, financially strapped people, that’s a more sensible financial decision. Especially with sending them a machine to college or high school</p><p><br></p><p>If I had a kid, I certainly would get them a nice rugged business class, Dell Latitude. Something designed to take abuse and last a long time. Macbooks are fragile machines, and are notorious for breaking. Which is probably why, Apple has so much money.</p>

          • wright_is

            Premium Member
            26 November, 2021 - 2:28 am

            <p>In the case of my daughter, she saved up her Confirmation money and birthday money to buy her own laptop. She was going to buy a plasticy Windows laptop. I paid the difference to get her a decent MBP.</p><p><br></p><p>I think, because she had paid a lot of her own money for the laptop, she did know to take care of it – although accidents do happen.</p><p><br></p><p>Growing up, I was in a time when computers were new. My first ZX81, I had to pay half of the price of it, my mother chipped in the rest. It was "only" 69UKP at the time, but for a 13 year old getting ~2UKP pocket money, that was still a lot of money to save up.</p><p><br></p><p>Each successive computer, I had to buy out of my own pocket money / Saturday job money. That taught me to be careful with the equipment and how to save money for what I really wanted. It is probably also one of the reasons why I’ve rarely borrowed money – apart from my car/motorbike to get me to or from work, I’ve never taken a loan out for anything (with the exception of a TV, which was 0% financed, I left the money in my savings account earning interest instead).</p>

            • pecosbob04

              26 November, 2021 - 9:42 am

              <p>"<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">savings account earning interest" what a concept!</span></p>

              • Paul hanson

                Premium Member
                26 November, 2021 - 7:30 pm

                <p>That whole thread about bricking £1K+ laptops and I focused in on the Sinclair ZX81! Reminded me of my first faltering steps into IT, listening to the Stranglers and gaming (8bit baby). I wish I could go back and give my, way younger, self some advice on life :)</p>

      • 2ilent8cho

        25 November, 2021 - 3:04 am

        <p>If it was an M1 based MacBook I doubt the carpet would matter, the Air is fanless and the Pro’s fans only slightly kick in when being pushed long and hard. </p>

        • polloloco51

          25 November, 2021 - 8:16 am

          <p>This was in 2014-ish </p><p><br></p><p>An M1 MacBook today, would not fry itself!</p><p><br></p>

        • mikegalos

          25 November, 2021 - 11:52 pm

          <p>Fan or no fan the heat has to go somewhere. Using the case as a to dissipate the heat radiantly only works if the case is touching an electrically inert fluid like air. Granted the mobile-oriented processors like those in Apple’s current products or most phones produce less heat but physics is a harsh mistress regardless.</p>

          • rob_segal

            Premium Member
            26 November, 2021 - 3:47 pm

            <p>Apple’s current chips run really cool. They’re not like Intel or AMD’s processors that run hot. My M1 MacBook Air doesn’t need fans. It’s never hot to the touch. It doesn’t even get warm.</p>

  • echo64

    24 November, 2021 - 5:10 pm

    <p>"<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">notebooks sales down 12 percent and desktops sales up 2 percent"</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Interesting that in 2021 desktop sales are still somehow beating notebooks.</span></p>

  • Donte

    24 November, 2021 - 9:36 pm

    <p>"<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">For the quarter ending October 29"</span></p><p><br></p><p>Lets see how things go once all of the free government money dies up. Right now I believe people are still getting monthly pay per child from the federal government and I believe the "cares" act or whatever its called is good through 12/31/21 so those that are not paying rent, and have not since March of 2020 under this act. </p><p><br></p><p>Lots of free money still in the system to buy those niceties. Once it dries up then it’s back to the necessities.</p>

    • sykeward

      24 November, 2021 - 11:09 pm

      <p>Since the bulk of these sales figures are to the corporate channel (HP mentions right there that it’s consumer sales are actually <em>down</em>), I doubt your snide assertion that child tax credit payments are propping up the PC industry. Even more unlikely is that people who haven’t paid rent “since March of 2020” are flooding the PC market with money—if only because the eviction moratorium (which was an emergency order by the CDC and had nothing to do with CARES) didn’t take effect until September 2020 and was struck down by the courts three months ago.</p><p><br></p><p>Where I suspect a lot of this is coming from is the component shortages and top-tier OEMs snapping up all available parts at the expense of smaller players. Microsoft has already provided guidance that their Surface sales will be down in the holiday quarter due to their inability to get components.</p>

    • jimchamplin

      Premium Member
      24 November, 2021 - 11:35 pm

      <p>I am the one propping up these PC sales. </p><p><br></p><p>My awesome personality is channeling money into the lives of those who deserve it, and pulling it away from those who don’t. I make sure that cold hard cash is in the hands of the hardworking, and soft, warm shitballs are in the hands of those who do nothing and hurt the world.</p><p><br></p><p>Remember: Take from the Idle Rich and reward the hardworking. Help them buy good computers, especially if they want to buy old computers.</p><p><br></p><p>A new home for an 8-bit is more important than a rich man buying a new car.</p>

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