Dell: 'We will out-pace the rest of the industry'
Faster than the slow
Dell claims it will out-pace the rest of the PC industry this year. But that may not be much of a boast. The company doesn't know whether the industry is actually on the way up.
"For the first nine months of this year, according to IDC, Dell grew a few points faster than the overall industry for our unit growth," Michael Dell told Reuters this morning. "We expect for the full year, Dell will grow faster than the industry."
The prodigal CEO also told a room full of reporters that the company has axed the 8,900 jobs it recently said it would ax and that it plans on spending its extra cash to acquire other companies.
Last month, the number two PC maker warned that in Q3, a "further softening" of demand would hit Europe and Asia as well as the US. So saying it will out-pace the rest of the industry may not be saying much.
At the end of August, Dell posted a surprise 17 per cent profit drop.
The company boasts that sales have jumped 30 per cent in China and Hong Kong this year, but Dell China vice president Alex Yung told Reuters that the future is uncertain. "Honestly, how things will turn out next year is hard to say," he said. "We don't know what kind of policy the Chinese government will come up with. If they continue to encourage domestic consumption, we wouldn't be too worried."
Michael Dell isn't worried. At least not publicly. But despite his braggadocio, his company's stock price is down 6 per cent today in NASDAQ trading. ®
COMMENTS
Out-pace?
They could start by making their website faster. It's always so sloooooow!
out-pace?
well i gave up waiting for my new laptop after three weeks and bought the Asus instead.
Shoddy logic
"But despite his braggadocio, his company's stock price is down 6 per cent today in NASDAQ trading."
Unlike the rest of the NASDAQ, which is 6.1% down at close? Seriously, that is a peculiarly shoddy bit of logic. Even more shoddy would be ascribing any sort of rational action to the current markets.
@Shewchuk
Don't feel too bad. By the time Bush2 finishes with the US - we will all be out of jobs. At least you will have some health care up there.
Should I wear my heavy coat when I move north?
So much for core business...
Heaven forbid you use the extra cash from firing all those employees to stay afloat during an economic recession and focus on your core business. Better buy some companies, instead.
Nearly a thousand people (low-income and needing the work) here in Edmonton lost jobs at a Dell call support centre. This call support centre was controversial to begin with; it was a result of Edmonton wooing Dell with lucrative tax breaks. And Dell has the audacity to close the damn centre long before the contract was due to expire. Classy.
Why keep low-income North Americans employed as tech support when you can get rid of them and outsource to India, and then buy a few dead-end Web 2.0 companies with the spare change? Product quality, customer satisfaction and profits can only go up, right?
Drivelling idiots.
Ok, I'm done being bitter.
