HP Revenues Beat Expectations Thanks To Robust PC Demand

HP Inc has posted a very healthy set of quarterly financials, which reflects the strong demand it continues to experience for its PCs, laptops and printers.

The firm doubled its profits for the quarter and its revenue exceeded analyst expectations, a piece of welcome news for Wall Street investors.

Meanwhile HP also revealed Steve Fieler as its chief financial officer (CFO), and he has taken over from 32-year HP veteran Cathie Lesjak, who becomes interim chief operating officer.

Strong performance

For the second quarter ending 30 April, HP posted a net profit of $1.06bn (£797bn), almost double the profit of $559m (£421m) it posted in the same year-ago quarter.

Total revenue meanwhile rose 13 percent to $14bn (£10.5bn) from $12.4bn (£9.3bn) a year earlier.

“We delivered another quarter of double digit year over year revenue and profit growth, strong EPS and impressive free cash flow and performed well across segments and regions,” said Dion Weisler, President and CEO of HP.

“Our sharp focus on innovation, combined with operational excellence and driving profitable growth is paying off,” he added.

HP of course is the hardware-focused business formed out of the corporate split of Hewlett-Packard back in 2015.

And last year it completed its acquisition of Samsung’s printer business, which also helped drive a rise in that division’s sales in the latest quarter.

Divisional breakdown

It should be remembered that after its corporate split in 2015, HP is made up of mostly hardware, whereas HPE contains the enterprise hardware, software and services divisions.

Despite this, it has been another good quarter for hardware it seems for HP.

Indeed, the strong showing of both the printer and HP’s personal systems business (its main revenue generator), help the firm deliver the strong set of second quarter financials

Revenue at the Personal Systems division rose 14 percent year over year to $8.8bn (£6.6bn) from $7.6bn (£5.8bn) a year earlier.

HP said that commercial (i.e. business) net revenue in its PC division increased 16 percent and consumer net revenue increased 10 percent, while total units shipped were up 7 percent overall (with notebooks up 7 percent and desktops up 7 percent).

There was similar good news at the Printing division, where revenue was up 11 percent year over year to $5.2bn (£3.9bn) from $4.7bn (£3.6bn) a year earlier.

Total number of printers shipped were up 13 percent with commercial hardware units up 88 percent and consumer hardware units up 4 percent.

New CFO Steve Fieler will no doubt be hoping that HP can maintain this strong performance in the upcoming quarters.

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