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DELL · Forward model · Storage · Clarke case

What has to happen in Storage

Model as of

This page changes Storage inside the complete DELL model. Every other vertical, corporate programme and valuation assumption stays in the selected portfolio case.

DELL forward model
Horizon
Consolidated fair value $282.57 all other verticals held in this portfolio case
Final-quarter revenue $6.58B 11% of company revenue
Explicit segment contribution $8.82B EBITDA less segment capex, before corporate items

Jeff Clarke's framing that this has stopped being a spot market. Customers are negotiating multi-year supply arrangements with Dell running up to five years, which is exactly the twenty-quarter horizon of this model. If those convert into contracted volume rather than pipeline, the AI line stops being a backlog being drained and becomes an annuity - a different valuation object from the one 0.9x terminal revenue prices. What this case does NOT do is raise the near-term shipment path above Dell's own guidance: the constraint is still memory, and the case is an argument about durability and multiple, not about Q2.

Storage

Basis quarter$4.33B
Final quarter$6.58B
Implied CAGR+9%
Final revenue mix11%

The steady, high-margin ballast inside ISG. $4,334M in the basis quarter, up 8% year over year - the slowest line in the company and, on any reasonable reading of the segment blend, the richest. Nine quarters of disclosed history sit in a $3.8B-$4.8B band with a clear fiscal-Q4 peak. Management called out record demand growth in Dell IP storage, PowerStore and PowerScale, attached to AI data pipelines.

Last four quarters
2026 Q2 $3.86B Reported
2026 Q3 $3.98B Reported
2026 Q4 $4.80B Reported
2027 Q1 $4.33B Reported
Dell IP storage: PowerStore, PowerScale, PowerMax, ObjectScaleThird-party and attached storage
Sequential growth +2.0%/qtr decaying toward +1.0% Nine disclosed quarters sit in a $3.8-4.8B band; mid-single-digit annual growth with a fiscal-Q4 peak is the shape.
Storage

Latest: $6.58B (2032Q1E)

Period Value
2025Q1 $3.76B
2025Q2 $3.97B
2025Q3 $4.00B
2025Q4 $4.72B
2026Q1 $4.00B
2026Q2 $3.86B
2026Q3 $3.98B
2026Q4 $4.80B
2027Q1 $4.33B
2027Q2E $4.44B
2027Q3E $4.55B
2027Q4E $4.65B
2028Q1E $4.76B
2028Q2E $4.86B
2028Q3E $4.96B
2028Q4E $5.07B
2029Q1E $5.17B
2029Q2E $5.28B
2029Q3E $5.39B
2029Q4E $5.50B
2030Q1E $5.61B
2030Q2E $5.72B
2030Q3E $5.84B
2030Q4E $5.95B
2031Q1E $6.07B
2031Q2E $6.20B
2031Q3E $6.32B
2031Q4E $6.45B
2032Q1E $6.58B

Assumptions & reasoning

  • This is the one ISG line whose history needs nothing derived: nine consecutive quarters, every one of them printed in a release reconciliation table.
  • Storage has grown between 1% and 8% year over year for two years. It is the reason this model is not a pure AI bet, and it is also far too small to offset an AI-server disappointment: $4.3B a quarter against $16.1B.
  • Its margin contribution is invisible in the filings - it is pooled into the single ISG operating income figure. The 13.0% terminal margin here sits above the ISG blend on the judgement that storage is the richest line in the segment, and that judgement is the assumption, not a disclosure.
  • No seasonality factors are applied even though the fiscal-Q4 peak is visible in the history, because a four-factor seasonal cut fitted on nine quarters would add precision the disclosure does not support.
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