Hewlett Packard reported a 91 percent drop
in fourth quarter profits Monday as the computer giant took a massive
hit for selling of its now-discontinued webOS tablet computers.
The world's largest technology company by revenue said that its
sales in the quarter fell 3 percent to $32.1 billion compared
to $33.3 billion a year ago, while profits dropped to $239
million from $2.5 billion last year.
HP said the results reflected $2.2 billion in one-time
charges incurred largely for writing down its stock of webOS tablets.
The results were the first issued by the company since the
appointment of Meg Whitman as CEO in September. She quickly reversed
a controversial decision made by her predecessor Leo Apotheker to
spin off the company's PC business, the world's largest, and said
that her new plan placed the company in a much stronger position.
"HP has a great opportunity to build on our strong hardware,
software, and services franchises with leading market positions,
customer relationships, and intellectual property," Whitman said in a
statement. "We need to get back to the business fundamentals in
fiscal 2012, including making prudent investments in the business and
driving more consistent execution."
HP said that its services business grew 2 percent to $9.3 billion
in the quarter, while its PC hardware business saw sales fall
by 2 percent. The Imaging and Printing Group saw revenue fall 10 percent, HP said.
Revenue in the Americas dropped 4 percent, while Europe, the
Middle East and Africa dropped 6 percent. Sales in the Asia-Pacific
region grew 3 percent, while the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia,
India and China) generated revenue of 3.8 billion, up 9 percent over
the year-ago period, for 12 percent of total HP revenue.
