Dell Boosts Forecast on Hot AI Server Demand
So, Dell, yeah, the computer folks, just bumped up how much money they think they'll make this year. Why? Looks like everyone wants their computers that are all fancy with AI stuff inside, especially the ones rocking those super powerful chips from Nvidia.
Their stock even went up a bit after the news. You know, companies like Elon Musk's new AI thing, xAI, and this other place called CoreWeave use Dell's servers. Both Dell and Super Micro Computer have been doing pretty well 'cause lots of people want these servers, but making them costs a ton and there's a lot of competition, so it's tough on their profit margins.
Dell's Chief Operating Officer, Jeff Clarke, said they got a crazy $12.1 billion in AI orders just in the last few months! That's more than they shipped all of last year, and they still have a ton of orders waiting, like $14.4 billion worth. Isn't that wild?
This good news for Dell came after the government announced they're building a new supercomputer called Doudna. It's gonna use Dell and Nvidia's tech to do some seriously complicated computing.
Dell is now saying they expect to make about $9.40 per share this year, which is a little more than the $9.30 they thought before. They're keeping their prediction for how much money they'll bring in overall the same though. They also think they'll pull in between $28.5 billion and $29.5 billion in the next few months, which is way more than what the money experts were guessing, around $25.05 billion. Their predicted profit for those same months, $2.25 per share, is also higher than the $2.09 the experts thought.
For the first few months of the year, Dell actually brought in more money than expected, $23.38 billion compared to the $23.14 billion guessed. But their profit per share, $1.55, was a little less than the $1.69 predicted.
One analyst, Shreya Gheewala, mentioned that they might have some trouble with profits in the short term because of pricing wars, taxes on imports, and where they're selling things.
Sales for Dell's business stuff, like storage and servers, went up 12%. Their PC business also saw a boost, up 5%. Jeff Clarke also said that while people aren't buying new computers as fast as they used to, it looks like folks are starting to upgrade to Windows 11 PCs, including the ones with AI built in. Maybe this trend will pick up even more, who knows?
