DELL Earnings Preview: Dell is expected to report strong Q2 results

Dell Technologies (NYSE: DELL) is preparing to report second-quarter results next week, with analysts forecasting strong year-over-year growth in revenue and adjusted earnings. The company continues to benefit from surging demand for AI-optimized infrastructure and a rebound in the commercial PC market. Although topline growth has moderated slightly in recent quarters, Dell maintains strong cash flows and a sizable order backlog, underscoring its operational resilience.

Shares of Dell have maintained an uptrend after recovering from a one-year low in March this year. However, the momentum waned recently, and the stock has pared a part of its earlier gains ahead of next week’s earnings. DELL has grown about 12% since the beginning of 2025. Given the strong potential for Dell’s active AI initiatives to drive shareholder value, the stock presents a compelling long-term investment opportunity, despite its relatively high valuation.

Q2 Earnings on Tap

The tech firm is expected to publish its second-quarter 2026 results on Thursday, August 28, at 4:05 pm ET. On average, analysts following the business forecast earnings of $2.29 per share on revenues of $29.19 billion for the July quarter. In the prior-year quarter, the company earned $1.89 per share on revenues of $25.03 billion. The management’s most recent guidance calls for revenues of $28.5-$29.5 billion for the July quarter. The company expects Q2 earnings per share to be $1.85, and adjusted earnings per share $2.25.

From Dell’s Q1 2026 Earnings Call:

“We are innovating at breakneck speed, designing bespoke, custom solutions for customers, while being agile to respond quickly to evolving next-generation architectures. Our ecosystem in this space is unmatched, with key partners such as NVIDIA, AMD, HuggingFace, Cohere, Meta, Mistral, Google, and so many others. Our execution continues to be a key differentiator. We’ve built a strong reputation for deploying large-scale clusters quickly and reliably, significantly reducing the time-to-first token and accelerating time-to-value for our customers.”

In the first quarter, Dell’s revenue increased 5% year-over-year to $23.4 billion, with Infrastructure Solutions and Client Solutions revenues growing 12% and 5% respectively. The top line exceeded expectations, after missing in the prior quarter. On a per-share basis, adjusted earnings per share jumped 17% YoY to $1.55 in Q1, while unadjusted net income remained unchanged at $1.37 per share. Earnings missed estimates, breaking a long-standing trend of consistent market beats. During the quarter, the company returned $2.4 billion to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends

Road Ahead

The Dell leadership said it expects full-year 2026 revenues to be between $101.0 billion and $105.0 billion. The guidance for FY26 adjusted earnings per share is $9.40; unadjusted earnings per share are expected to be $7.99. The robust demand for its high-end, AI-optimized servers has been a major tailwind for the company. It has a substantial backlog of such orders, which is the basis of the management’s positive outlook for the business.

On Thursday, DELL opened slightly below $130 and experienced high volatility in the early hours of the session. The stock traded well above its 52-week average price of $114.35.