Despite its standing as one of the top players, many of the units Dell sells are to the unprofitable consumer market.
But the size of its screens grew to the point at which they became unprofitable, because so few consumers wanted them that large.
Only eight million adults (I'm among them) have long-term care insurance, a product that has proven unattractive to most consumers and unprofitable for some major insurance companies, who are leaving the field.
Traditional subsidies, economists contend, generally encourage inefficient farmers to grow unprofitable crops far beyond what consumers actually need, secure in the knowledge that the government will help protect them from loss.
GBO bought the retailer from Cablevision Systems, which decided to shed the unprofitable business and exit the consumer electronics business.
His critics say currency controls have left companies unable to obtain imported machine parts and raw materials while price controls have made it unprofitable to produce many basic consumer goods.
"The prudent thing to do was not to bet that the capital markets would reverse again and start to love unprofitable, large-scale, business-to-consumer Internet companies," he said.
"Any inaccuracy in a pricing structure, so that a company underprices a particular segment of the country, or a particular type of business, means they can very quickly sell a lot of policies at a very unprofitable rate, which benefits the consumer, but not the insurance company".
Mr. Gulliver said the bank was watching some products at its global banking unit, which might become unprofitable because of stricter regulation or changing consumer demands.
CHD responded by implementing initiatives such as price increases of 4% to 10% on about a third of its U.S. consumer products, the elimination of unprofitable trade promotions and supply chain improvements.
