Dell Aims to Outpace Industry, Sees Uncertainty

By Fang Yan and Helen Ding

SHANGHAI, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Dell (DELL), the world's second-biggest computer maker, expects to grow faster than the industry this year but its CEO added it is hard to say whether the global PC market will improve heading into the year-end.

While slashing jobs, the company, which made nine acquisitions in the past two years, will continue making buys as the industry consolidates, Michael Dell told a briefing for reporters on Wednesday.

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In August, Dell, which trails Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) in the computer sector, posted a steep drop in second-quarter profit, as slow demand for PCs spread from the U.S. corporate sector to the public sector and small businesses, and to Europe and Asia.

PC demand did not rebound in September from the summer lull and Dell said he was not sure whether the situation would improve in the year-end holiday season.

"I don't know," he said. "It's hard to say."

But Dell added that his company was still performing well in unit shipments compared with the overall industry.

"For the first nine months of this year, according to IDC, Dell grew a few points faster than the overall industry for our unit growth. We expect for the full year, Dell will grow faster than the industry," he said.

In August, the company said it had cut 8,500 jobs out of a planned 8,900 headcount reduction, as it realigns its business to confront slowing demand.

It has basically finished its announced headcount cuts and has no additional announcements to make on that front, Dell told Wednesday's briefing.