Dell has warned that 2023 could be another incredibly challenging year after a tough end to 2022 for the company.
Despite announcing a record revenue in fiscal year 2023, which ended for the company last month, Dell's revenue in the final quarter was down 11%, indicating the tough months that are yet to come.
Much of the company’s success, though, can be attributed to its Infrastructure Solutions Group which is responsible for cloud operations, with its PC sales suffering quietly.
Global PC sales
According to research firm Canalys, in the calendar year 2022, Dell shipped just shy of 50,000 desktops and notebooks, compared with almost 60,000 in 2021, representing a 16.1% decline (a figure representative of the industry average of 16.4%).
Despite the challenging year, Dell maintains its position as the third most popular computer company after Lenovo and HP (both of which suffered greater reductions in shipments), successfully accounting for precisely 17.4% of the market both years running.
Dell’s co-chief operating officer, Chuck Whitten, alluded that this may not continue to be the case for the company, though, noting theat although, "Underlying demand in PCs and servers remains weak, (we) are seeing signs of changing customer behavior in storage."
Dell shipped 37.2% fewer PCs in the final quarter of 2022 (note, this is different to the company’s fiscal final quarter), making it the worst-performing among the top five companies.
As the world cuts back on PC spend, Dell prepares itself to shift attention to other operations. Whitten, who is “pleased with [Dell’s] momentum in storage”, said:
“We expect to gain over a point of share in mainstream server and storage revenue when the IDC calendar results come out later this month.”
How exactly the year ahead will pan out for the PC market is anybody’s guess, with several opposing predictions emerging over recent months, however our growing need for an increasingly cloud-based storage continues to deliver profits for traditional computing companies who are willing to explore other avenues.
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