Dell shares jump 31% as AI server boom drives biggest quarterly beat
Dell raised its annual outlook after first-quarter revenue jumped to $28.4 billion, driven by a 757 percent surge in AI-server sales. Analysts said the beat was the widest in at least five years.
Dell Technologies lifted first-quarter revenue about 19 percent year on year to $28.4 billion, comfortably beating Wall Street estimates, with the company saying AI-server revenue grew 757 percent from a year earlier. It marked Dell's fastest overall sales growth since its 2018 return to public markets.
Chief financial officer Yvonne McGill said Dell raised its full-year outlook and that the AI-server backlog had strengthened further. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told CNBC the report offered 'broad-based evidence that the AI commercial story is real.' Shares jumped 31 percent in after-hours trading, lifting rivals ServiceNow, Oracle and Palantir, while Snowflake's separate beat fueled an even wider software rally.
Dell's growth depends heavily on capital spending by hyperscale customers including Microsoft, Amazon and Meta, but management also flagged a tentative recovery in traditional servers and PCs. Investors will watch whether AI orders translate into durable margin gains. This article is not investment advice.
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