Despite declines nearly across the board, Hewlett-Packard just barely managed an increase in revenue for the first quarter of 2009, which ended Jan. 31, the company announced Wednesday.
Net revenue for the quarter reached US$28.8 billion, up one per cent compared to the same period last year.
Net income was $1.9 billion, or $0.75 earnings per share, down from $2.1 billion, or $0.80 earnings per share. On a pro forma basis, which excludes certain one-time items, net income came in at $2.3 billion, the same as in the first quarter of 2008, although earnings per share rose to $0.93 from $0.86.
Without strong growth in its Services group, HP would have fared much worse. Revenue for that group grew 116 percent to $8.7 billion, primarily due to HP’s acquisition of EDS.
Its Personal Systems Group, which includes computers, declined 19 percent compared to the previous year to $8.8 billion. Unit shipments were down four per cent. Desktop revenue plummeted 25 per cent while notebook revenue declined 13 per cent.
HP’s Enterprise Storage and Servers group reported revenue down 18 percent to $3.9 billion compared to the same period a year earlier. The Imaging and Printing Group also declined, with revenue down 19 percent to $6.0 billion. Within that group, printer unit shipments decreased 33 per cent.
HP Software revenue was down seven per cent to $878 million and HP Financial Services revenue decreased 1 percent to $636 million.
The results were lower than HP said it expected when it reported its previous quarter earnings in November. At that time, it said revenue for the quarter ending in January should reach between $32 billion and $32.5 billion, with earnings per share in the range of $0.80 to $0.82.
In a statement commenting on the results, Chairman and CEO Mark Hurd said that HP executed well given the touchy market conditions.
