Dell’s Q4 profits – which tellingly include January – dropped 6% year-over-year and down 11% sequentially to $679 million, 31 cents-a-share, on revenues up 10% year-over-year to $15.99 billion.

Subtracting the costs for job cuts, R&D write-offs from acquisitions, investigation-related costs, copyright levees and other such things, things it blamed for its profits picture, it still came up two cents short of Wall Street expectations of 36 cents a share on $16.27 billion in revenues.

In what passed for a forecast Dell worried that its costs as it realigns may impact its near-term performance, and then there’s the US economy.

Dell is now getting 51% of its revenue from the US and it said it’s seeing more conservative spending by global accounts, especially the financial institutions.

The US consumer is holding up. Dell said it saw revenue growth of 12% and 25% percent increase in shipments to the US consumer and claimed a unit share increased of over three points, the largest quarterly gain in over three years.

Dell is, of course, also in the throes of trying to develop a retail business that is alien to its nature.

Dell sales outside the US were up 16% and it said growth was especially strong in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries where revenue grew 36% on a 50% increase in units. (Brazil was up 52%.) Growth was also strong in Asia Pacific and Japan where revenue grew 28% and units were up 41%. Americas International revenue grew 22%.

Dell said last year that it would cut 8,800 people, roughly 10% of its work force. It’s cut 5,300 and hired 2,100. It suggests that the remaining cuts will make the next quarter or two volatile.

The company’s gross margin went from 18.5% to 18.8% sequentially but its operating margin narrowed from 5.3% to 4.9%.

Notebook revenues were up 24% and unit shipments up 37%. Services revenue was up 7% and the company’s deferred services revenue balance grew 25% to $5.3 billion.

Revenue for the full fiscal year was $61.1 billion, up 6% year-over-year and earnings were up 15% to $1.31.