Dell has predicted that PC sales will hardly grow next yeardespite the potential that PCs have for AI, pointing to the slow transition from Windows 10 to Windows 11 as one of the reasons for this. His COO, Jeffrey Clarkenoted during the communication of the company’s third quarter results that the transition to Windows 11 has not yet been completed and that “In fact, if we compare it with the end of support for the previous operating system, with Windows 11 we are between 10 and 12 points behind the point we were at with the previous generation«.
For Clarke, according to The Register, this implies that there are 500 million computers that are not compatible with Windows 11, and they are computers that do not need an update to adopt the latest desktop operating system. That is why the sector is going to register sales whose growth is going to be limited, despite the fact that Dell aims for an increase in sales of between 5% and 9% for the last year.
The company is, however, quite well positioned for the coming quarters, as its enterprise hardware portfolio for AI is performing very well. Dell placed orders for 12.3 billion AI servers in the third quarter of this year, and sold $5.6 billion worth of machines.
Additionally, the company’s server and networking components revenue reached $10.1 billion during the quarter, up 37% from the same period last year. Buyers are also more interested in conventional servers as they need to consolidate their existing fleets into denser configurations. This means that each system has to have more memory and storage capacity.
For Dell, this is a challenge due to the explosive Price rise of RAM and NAND memory modules, as manufacturers are moving from producing these modules for servers and traditional equipment to products that leave them with higher margins and are designed for AI workloads.
Clarke has assured that they will do everything they can to minimize the impact of these price increases, thanks to the supply chain management skills they had to acquire during the pandemic. Also in recent months, due to the tariff policies of the Trump Administration.
Dell has earned 27 billion dollars during the last quarter11% more than in the same period of 2024. It is expected that they will reach $31.5 billion in the last quarter of the year, and $111.7 billion in its full fiscal year 2026, 32% and 17% more than in the previous fiscal year, respectively. According to the calculations of its managers, the servers will be an important part of the improvement.
