"US computer maker Dell has seen its quarterly profits slip 5%, as customers worldwide bought fewer computers. Dells profits in the third quarter were $727m (£492.3m), down from $766m in the same period last year.

Dell's chief financial officer, Brian Gladden, said that the firm expected "the challenging environment to continue".

In one bright spot, Dell's revenue from its personal computers increased 10%, as global sales jumped 32%.

However, Dell's consumer sales account for less than a fifth of the company's total, and the bright performance wasn't able to offset trouble in the corporate business.

Dell said its sales slipped 3% to about $15bn, which was slightly less than most analysts had been expecting. In the Americas, Dell's largest region for sales to businesses, its revenue fell 8%.

Dell also lacks the product diversity enjoyed by its biggest rival, Hewlett-Packard, which announced this week that it would exceed analysts' forecasts for its most recent quarter.

Dell has been on a cost-cutting campaign in a bid to respond to the economic slump and has cut 9% of its work force in the past year. "