As promised, I wanted to provide a few interesting datapoints and comments from Dell's conference call (a transcript of which was kindly provided to us by our friends at CCNSource.com).

First, a recap of what I reported earlier:

Q2 revs came in at $8.46 billion, vs. estimates of $8.29 billion. EPS met consensus estimates of .19 cents.

For Q3, Dell sees 5% sequential revenue growth and EPS of .20-.21 cents.

Industry PC shipments are expected to be flat or up only slightly from Q2 to Q3, thus Dell is clearly taking share from competitors.


Interesting datapoints and comments from the conference call:

- Dell's global market share gained 2.2% YTY to 14.9%, while the company's top ten competitors lost -2%.

- Dell's revenues grew 11% YTY, while the industry's declined -10%.

- Sees "continued move and interest in Linux," particularly in the clustered computing area. Linux is "not taking share from Microsoft, but grabbing share against UNIX." Ahh, that's why SUNW's jumping on the Linux bandwagon!

- "We still have no plans to pay dividends. We consider double taxation of dividends to be major problem to having a dividend." Congress needs to fix the double taxation problem.

- "Likely to enter printing and PDA markets". Sells 2mm printers a year, so "already in that business." "We'd like to capture more of the printer profit, not just the revenues." Watch out, Carly!

- Business from existing corporate accounts grew 19% YTY.

- Talking about corporate markets, there is "pent up demand but that will continue on into next year. We don't know when the rubber band will snap back, but we believe it is not a matter of if, but when." "We still see small sequential improvements" in the corporate markets. This bottoming is good news for the economy, but I'm still worried about the consumer as the driving force for the double dip.


It's clear that Dell is continuing to seize market share and maintain business momentum in a difficult environment. Dell is like a hyena in a jungle of elephants, and management should be applauded.

Earlier today, I noted that I sure wouldn't want to be the one bidding up HPQ's stock (up 16% this week) ahead of Dell's call... I'd like to reiterate that statement post-call!