Hewlet Packard, the world's largest maker of
traditional personal computers, reported a 7-percent drop in sales
Wednesday for its fiscal first quarter as consumer spending on PCs
dropped a whopping 25 percent.
The Silicon Valley bellwether reported its earnings a day after
rival Dell delivered its own glum sales report, confirming analyst
predictions of a sharp slowdown in PC markets as customers stick with
ageing models or replace them with iPads and other tablet computers.
For the quarter, HP said its revenue was $30 billion, down
7 per cent from the $32.3 billion in revenue it booked in the
year-ago period. Net earnings were down 44 per cent to $1.5 billion from $2.6 billion a year ago.
"In the first quarter, we delivered on our Q1 outlook and remained
focused on the fundamentals to drive long-term sustainable returns,"
said Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive. "We are taking
the necessary steps to improve execution, increase effectiveness and
capitalize on emerging opportunities to reassert HP's technology
leadership."
In the Americas, first-quarter revenue was 13.2 billion dollars,
down 9 per cent, while Europe, the Middle East and Africa saw revenue
drop 4 per cent to $11.7 billion. Asia Pacific revenues were
down 10 per cent to $5.2 billion.
Commercial PC sales fell 7 percent, while consumer sales dropped
25 percent. Total unit sales were down 18 percent.
Services revenue was up by 1 per cent to $8.6 billion,
while printing and imaging revenue dropped 7 percent. The only
bright spots were software and financial services sales, which grew
by 30 percent and 15 percent respectively.
