Hardware vendor Dell’s sales rose by 21% year-on-year to $14.9 billion in its most recent quarter, an effect the company attributed to a "large corporate client refresh".
Sales at the company’s enterprise division were up 25% to $4.2 billion, while the small and medium-sized business divsion grew 22% to $3.9 billion.
Dell’s public sector unit revenues showed a 22% rise to $3.9 billion. This refresh was prompted by an improvement in the global economic climate and the release last autumn of Microsoft’s latest operating system Windows 7, the company said.
"As we indicated last quarter we are…in the early stages of a large corporate client refresh and we believe demand will continue to be relatively strong here," said Dell CFO Brian Gladden. "While we have suffered during the past 18 months of weak commercial demand we stand to benefit in this cycle."
The addition of Perot Systems, the IT services company Dell acquired in September 2009 for $3.9 billion, also helped push up the revenue figure. However, Dell’s profits – despite rising 52% year-on-year – remained slight at $441 million.
One reason for this was the short supply and subsequent rising cost of components, which the company expects to continue in the coming months. CEO Michael Dell revealed that the company would alter the specifications of its products to compensate for this trend. Dell’s share price fell 3% after these results were revealed.
