Dell profit down 36% for quarter
August 2006,Dell Inc. on Thursday posted disappointing second-quarter earnings amid a regulatory probe.
The
Round Rock, Texas-based company, whose second-quarter profit fell 36
percent to $605 million, this week voluntarily recalled 4.1 million
potentially flammable batteries supplied by Sony Corp.Dell said
Thursday it was cooperating with an informal investigation by the
Securities and Exchange Commission over “accounting and financial
reporting matters for certain past fiscal years.”CEO Kevin Rollins said
Dell received a letter from the SEC in August 2005 “asking us about a
fairly broad level of questions on some revenue recognition.””We’re
complying with that informal investigation,” he said. “That’s about all
we know. We don’t think there are going to be any issues that are
material that we’re going to have to worry about.”Dell reported
earnings of 22 cents a share on sales of $14.1 billion, enough to meet
the lowered expectations of analysts polled by Thomson Financial. In
the same period a year ago, Dell had earnings of 38 cents a a share on
sales of $13.4 billion.• Hewlett-Packard Co.’s stock surged to a new
year high Thursday after the computer and printer maker reported a
third-quarter profit that beat expectations.H-P shares rose 72 cents,
or 2.1 percent, to close at $35.15 on the New York Stock Exchange.For
the three months ended July 31, H-P earned $1.38 billion, or 48 cents a
share, compared with $73 million, or 3 cents a share, in the same
quarter last year.The year-ago numbers were dramatically lower because
of a tax charge that resulted when the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company
pulled $14.5 billion from foreign earnings and “repatriated,” or
reinvested, those profits in the United States.Sales in the fiscal
third quarter rose 5 percent to $21.89 billion from $20.76 billion last
year. If not for currency fluctuations, sales would have increased 6
percent.Excluding one-time items, the company earned $1.48 billion, or
52 cents per share, up about 40 percent from the year-ago
quarter.Analysts were expecting the company to earn $1.37 billion, or
47 cents a share, on sales of $21.8 billion, according to a Thomson
Financial survey.