Dell blames Europe as sales fall short

US PC maker, Dell Computers, missed Wall Street revenue targets last night blaming a slow down in European business.

Although Dell saw profits for the second quarter jump 19 per cent to $603m, revenues were $7.67bn - $200m short of the figure set by financial analysts. According to vice chairman, Kevin Rollins, the shortfall was caused by a combination of sluggish European business and US government markets still feeling the aftershock of the year 2000 bug.

However, Rollins was upbeat about the second half of the year. He said growth in Dell's services arm, a stronger desire among businesses to upgrade to Microsoft Windows 2000 and the introduction of new product ranges would help the company hit its target of 30 per cent growth for the full year.

Despite the disappointment of missing its sales targets, the company took comfort from the continuing success of its website which accounted for half the company's revenues, or $50m of business a day.

Earlier this week Cisco Systems, the new bellwether of the IT industry beat analyst expectations with sales of $18.9bn for its financial year.