San Francisco  - In an encouraging sign for the computer industry, Dell said Monday that demand for its information-technology products appears to be stabilizing after three consecutive quarters of shrinking sales and profits.

Brian Gladden, chief financial officer for the Texas-based computer maker, said in an announcement that he expects to see a slight increase in second quarter revenues compared to last year. There was still plenty of room for improvement, however.

"We continue to believe that customers are deferring information- technology purchases, and that we will see demand return to more typical levels at some point," said Gladden.

Dell, the world's second-largest computer maker after Hewlett- Packard, said that its recovery would depend on a broad global economic improvement and higher worldwide information-technology spending. (dpa)