Earnings call

Dell Technologies Inc. Dell Technologies Inc. · Q2 FY2027 call

Call heldSep 1, 2026
Time3:30 p.m. Central (4:30 p.m. Eastern)
CEOMichael Dell

What the CEO argued

Chairman and chief executive Michael Dell does not take part in Dell's earnings calls; this one was led by vice chairman and chief operating officer Jeff Clarke and chief financial officer David Kennedy, with treasurer Tyler Johnson present. Their argument was that the quarter was a supply problem rather than a demand problem: revenue of $47 billion and non-GAAP EPS of $7.04, $131.7 billion of AI server orders booked over four quarters, a five-quarter pipeline still growing sequentially, and traditional server growth of 122% that Clarke said understated real demand because "demand outstrips supply." The $25 billion raise to a $192 billion full-year outlook was presented as an allocation win — components shifted away from a softening PC market into infrastructure — and the margin story as scale rather than mix, with ISG's rate lift attributed mostly to volume and full-year operating expense guided to a 42-year low as a share of revenue.

More from Michael Dell

What they said

The quarter in one line
Revenue was $47 billion, up 58%, and earnings per share was $7.04, up 203%.
Jeff Clarke · Vice Chairman and COO, Dell Technologies
Where the operating leverage came from
Operating expenses were up 22% to $4 billion, primarily from variable compensation tied to our outperformance. Building on last quarter, we continued to drive significant scale in the P&L, with OpEx down 250 basis points to 8.5% of revenue.
David Kennedy · CFO, Dell Technologies
Whether the second half can hold the first half's growth
The second half growth, which is 68%, is pretty much a mirror image to the first half, 71%.
David Kennedy · CFO, Dell Technologies
The order book behind the backlog
Our five-quarter pipeline grew sequentially. That's after booking $131.7 billion of orders over the past four quarters.
Jeff Clarke · Vice Chairman and COO, Dell Technologies
The demand case management is underwriting
We think the tokens that inference drives is going to grow 87x to 3,600 quadrillion tokens by 2030. Training demand grows 5x to 850 zettaflops by 2030. Enterprise agentic is expected to be the single largest workload by 2028.
Jeff Clarke · Vice Chairman and COO, Dell Technologies
The demand Dell says it could not ship
Mark, traditional server, the 122% growth, it is primarily our historical enterprise customers. I would stress demand outstrips supply. Demand was even greater than the results that we published there. We are supply constrained.
Jeff Clarke · Vice Chairman and COO, Dell Technologies
Supply, stated plainly
How I think about supply, as I'm often reminded by our sales force, it's not enough. We are doing everything we can to get more supply. In today's environment, that's a very difficult task.
Jeff Clarke · Vice Chairman and COO, Dell Technologies
What made the $25 billion raise possible
Our ability to increase guidance by the $25 billion is a direct reflection of our ability to optimize what's coming in, shaping demand, planning it accordingly, and getting it out the door.
Jeff Clarke · Vice Chairman and COO, Dell Technologies
Why PCs lost the components to infrastructure
One of the things that we did earlier this year as we saw the PC market showing signs of softening in the second half, we optimized the bits and bytes we have towards the infrastructure business.
Jeff Clarke · Vice Chairman and COO, Dell Technologies
How much of the traditional-server growth is price
They cost more than they did last quarter and the quarter before and the quarter before. So there's a notion of inflation inside our growth. But the underlying demand for the technology is significant.
Jeff Clarke · Vice Chairman and COO, Dell Technologies
What is actually lifting the ISG margin
As Jeff outlined it earlier, the number one driver here is a scale conversation, given the growth that we are seeing and the accelerated growth that we are seeing. That for the ISG business was a driver of just over 400 basis points. For the full year guide, it is worth over 650 basis points.
David Kennedy · CFO, Dell Technologies
The closing claim
Our advantages are compounding, our addressable opportunity is expanding, and our differentiated operating model is delivering significant leverage, with our full-year OpEx rate at a 42-year low. We raised our full-year guide by $25 billion to $192 billion, with $25.50 of EPS.
Jeff Clarke · Vice Chairman and COO, Dell Technologies

In the order they were said. Pick a name to read only that speaker.

On the call

  • Paul Frantz — Head of Investor Relations, Dell Technologies
  • Jeff Clarke — Vice Chairman and COO, Dell Technologies
  • David Kennedy — CFO, Dell Technologies
  • Amit Daryanani — Analyst, Evercore
  • Ben Reitzes — Analyst, Melius Research
  • Mark Newman — Analyst, Bernstein
  • Asiya Merchant — Analyst, Citi
  • Michael Tsvetkov — Analyst, Wells Fargo
  • Joseph Cardoza — Analyst, JPMorgan
  • David Vogt — Analyst, UBS

About these quotes

Every passage above is quoted verbatim from Dell Technologies Inc.'s Q2 FY2027 earnings call of Sep 1, 2026, checked against the recording's transcription word for word. The operator states that the call is recorded at Dell Technologies' request, that the broadcast is the copyrighted property of Dell Technologies and that rebroadcast in whole or in part without prior written permission is prohibited. This page therefore quotes passages from the call rather than reproducing it, and every quote was checked word for word against the captured text. The complete recording and the company's own earnings materials sit on Dell's investor relations site. Figures spoken on a call are management's own and are checked against the release before they are used anywhere else on this site.

WebcastListen to the call at Dell Technologies Inc. investor relationsThe company's own replay — the authoritative record ReleaseQ2 FY2027 results press releaseWhere every figure quoted here is verified NumbersQ2 FY2027 earnings pageThe reported figure set, Rule of 40 score and consensus comparison