EMC Reports Third Quarter Results

EMC Corporation today reported financial results for the third quarter of 2001.

The company said total consolidated revenue for the third quarter was $1.21 billion, 47% lower than the third quarter of 2000. Excluding the impact of a pre-tax restructuring charge of $825 million incurred during the quarter, EMC reported a pro-forma loss of $270 million, or $0.12 per share. Including the impact of the charge, EMC reported a consolidated loss of $945 million, or $0.43 per share. The charge includes the cost of excess inventory, workforce reduction, facilities consolidation, and the write down of certain investments. The ongoing reduction of operating costs includes lowering EMC’s worldwide employee population by approximately 4,000 people, an increase over the company’s previously announced estimate. This reduction, when completed, will bring the EMC workforce to approximately 19,000 employees.

“This is a very difficult time for nearly all businesses,” said Mike Ruettgers, EMC Executive Chairman. “Like many technology companies, we normally complete most of our business in the third month of every quarter. We came out of the summer and launched a completely refreshed lineup of Symmetrix Enterprise Storage systems that extend our technology lead and lower our customers’ costs. That announcement took place on September 10th. The next day, the world changed. The focus of many of our customers and employees turned to assisting those affected by the tragedies, helping companies continue their information flows, or simply navigating through an even slower pace of business.”

“EMC will continue to do everything under our control to blaze a leadership trail through the economic difficulties,” said Joe Tucci, EMC’s President and CEO. “Our networked information storage solutions, enabled by the best hardware and the best software available anywhere for managing and protecting large volumes of mission-critical information, will continue to set the standard. The work that our people and our technology did in helping dozens of customers through the events of September 11th is a tribute to the people of EMC. It also has made the necessity of advanced business continuance solutions hit home for organizations around the world. Today’s world requires much more than traditional disaster recovery capabilities and simple information protection measures. EMC’s longtime leadership in providing the highest levels of business continuance has never been more relevant.”

EMC said its financial resources are an indicator of how well the company is positioned to resume profitable growth when the global economy turns around, as it generated $85 million in cash during the third quarter, increasing cash and investments to $4.97 billion at the end of the quarter, with virtually no debt. Cash and investments represent approximately 50% of EMC’s total assets.