Dell last night said that its fourth-quarter profits slipped 5% despite revenues climbing to $14.9 billion.
The US computer giant's net income for the quarter ending January 29 was $334m, or 17 cents a share, compared to $351m, or 18 cents a share, the same time a year earlier.
Revenues were pushed up by sales of economical notebook computers, but the business market where Dell makes about half its sales is only beginning to revive from the recent global fiscal drubbing.
'We achieved solid revenue growth in every part of our business,' Dell's chief financial officer Brian Gladden said. 'Our commercial units are well poised for profitable growth as demand continues to return,' he added.
Dell executives said they are cautiously optimistic about businesses ramping up purchases of computers this year.
Dell's outlook echoes one expressed a day earlier by technology giant Hewlett-Packard, which said its first-quarter profit surged to $2.3 billion - fuelled by sales of personal computers. California-based HP's best performers were personal computers, unit sales of which surged 26%.
