HP Announces First Post-Merger Results

HP has announced its first quarterly results since its merger with Compaq and given the relatively bleak technology market, things are about where HP predicted they would be.  Revenue is 11% less than one year ago, at $16.5 billion for the quarter, but if charges for merger-related events and R&D are excluded, the firm made 14 cents per share in earnings, as predicted by analysts.

HP’s results were down in nearly every significant area – servers, PC’s, and services – except in its printer business, where a 10% increase in revenue was the very good news and led to a more than 100% increase in net income.  Everyone in the service business has had a rough quarter – in fact, they’ve had a rough year or more – but some have done better than HP in the PC and server businesses, leading to a loss of market share for HP.

It’s really too soon to tell much based on these early results.  Too many complicating factors in the economy, in any case.  But we’d guess HP’s in for another quarter of belt tightening and aggressive work in the marketplace to meet investor and market expectations.

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