shares of Dell Technologies Shares soared 32% on Friday after the company said its revenue grew at the fastest pace since returning to the public markets in 2018.
Stocks are on track for their best day ever.
Dell, which released first-quarter earnings after the bell Thursday, said artificial intelligence-related demand flooded its servers with graphics processing units from companies such as: Nvidia.
Revenue for the quarter soared nearly 88% year-over-year, with AI server revenue alone increasing 757% year-over-year to $16.1 billion. Adjusted earnings per share came to $4.86, beating expectations of $2.94.
Ben Reitzes, head of technology research at Melius, said “we’ve never seen anything like Dell’s latest quarter before.”
“They broke every line of the model, so this wasn’t just AI, it was great execution,” Reitzes said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “They beat everything we could have imagined.”
On Friday, the surprise report forced some analysts to reconsider their approach to Dell.
Morgan Stanley had expected a strong win and a pay increase this quarter, but wrote that Dell’s results were “biting into a small piece of the pie.”
“We got this wrong and our model/PT is under review,” the analysts wrote. “This was one of the more memorable quarters we’ve had covering hardware, especially in the context of what’s happening across the components world.”
Even before Friday’s move, Dell’s stock had soared, nearly tripling over the past year after Chairman and CEO Michael Dell forged strong ties with President Donald Trump during his second term in office.
The president bought Dell stock for between $1 million and $5 million on February 10, according to a government ethics filing, after Michael and Susan Dell announced a $6.25 billion gift to fund Trump accounts for 25 million children in the United States.
At a Mother’s Day event at the White House earlier this month, President Trump told Americans to “go out and buy a Dell” and thanked the Dells for joining the Trump account.
On Wednesday, Dell signed a contract worth $9.7 billion with the Department of Defense to provide a suite of software to the U.S. military.
—CNBC’s Garrett Downs, Haley Cucinello and Jordan Nove contributed to this report.
Dell’s stock price chart from the beginning of the year to the present.
