HP: PC Market Contraction is Slowing

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HP reported its first quarter fiscal 2014 results late Thursday, showing some areas of growth as the company continues to streamline its operations.

For the quarter, total revenue was reported at $28.2 billion, down 0.7 percent year-over-year. HP CEO Meg Whitman said during her company’s earnings call that on a constant currency basis, HP achieved revenue growth for the first time since the second quarter of 2011. Growth came from gains in both HP’s personal systems and enterprise group segments.

“While I would certainly not declare victory based on these results, they represent real progress,” Whitman said. “Make no mistake, we are focused on consistently and profitably growing revenue over the long-term.”

One of the areas that has hit HP hard in recent years has been the steady decline in the PC market, but apparently that’s a trend that is now leveling off.

“Overall the PC market contraction is slowing and we see signs of stabilization particularly in the commercial segment,” Whitman said. “Revenue grew 4 percent over the prior year, our first quarter of growth in seven quarters.”

Whitman added that growth was driven by strong performance in commercial notebooks.

HP’s x86 Industry standard server business is also growing, with revenue coming in at $3.2 billion for the quarter for a 6 percent year-over-year gain. Whitman also highlighted continued momentum in HP’s hyperscale computing efforts.

“We continue to make progress with Moonshot, as we roll those new workloads in the first quarter and introduced the first converged system for hosted desktop based on Moonshot technology,” Whitman said.

HP’s networking business is also growing, with a revenue of $630 million for a gain of 4 percent year-over-year.

“We saw good performance in switching, which grew revenue 5 percent over the prior year, comparing very favorably against Cisco’s results in the same period,” Whitman said.

One area of HP’s business that is not recovering is its UNIX and Business Critical Systems business unit. Revenue for Business Critical Systems was reported at $228 million for a 25 percent year-over-year decline.

Overall, Whitman emphasized that HP is well positioned now and is continuing to make the right moves to fuel future growth across its business as a whole.

 ”Rest assured, we are not taking our foot off the pedal,” Whitman said. “Over the next few quarters, we will introduce significant new innovations that will build upon our offerings in cloud, security, big data and converged infrastructure, as well as some remarkable new technologies in printing and personal systems.”

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at Datamation and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist

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