Dell's bonkers earnings show AI cash spigots remain wide open

Dell has been hiking prices for its servers and networking gear amid rampant demand, blaming broader supply chain tightness. COO Jeff Clarke last quarter told analysts “I'm sure our customers feel that pain.”

With that tailwind, and customers clamouring for AI servers, Dell wept all the way to the bank this week – raising its full-year revenue outlook by an astonishing $25 billion, with earnings per share (EPS) soaring 203% year over year.

And it’s done it whilst driving operational expenditure down to 8% of revenue – “the lowest in our company's 42-year history” said Clarke. (Net income for the quarter was $4.6 billion; up 189%, Dell reported.)

Supply remains tight, Clarke insisted: “The constraints remain the same. DRAM, DRAM, DRAM followed by NAND, NAND, NAND. We have spotty CPU shortages. There are shortages with disk drives,” he said on a Q2 call.