HP reports revenue of $11.89 billion, beats Q3 analyst estimates

Hewlett Packard reported earnings for the third-fiscal quarter that beat Wall Street estimates. HP reported non-GAAP net income of 48 cents a share on revenue of $11.89 billion.

Analysts expected third-fiscal quarter earnings of 44 cents a share on revenue of $11.47 billion revenue. No comparable year-over-year numbers are available because of the company’s split in November with enterprise cloud services company Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

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While HP beat the earnings targets, it warned that Q4 earnings would be lower than what analysts expected. And the company’s stock price is down 4.5 percent in after-hours trading.

“In Q3, we delivered on our financial commitments and continued to make solid progress in executing against our core, growth and future strategic framework,” said Dion Weisler, president and CEO of HP, in a statement. “Although the markets remain challenged, we have the innovation and executional rigor needed to continue to take profitable share and invest in the right opportunities to drive long-term success for the company.”

For the current fourth fiscal quarter ending in October, analysts are expecting earnings of 41 cents per share on revenues of $11.8 billion.

HP is swimming upstream in some ways, as market researchers IDC and Gartner expected the PC market to drop 10 percent in 2016. HP’s printing and PC business has been reporting revenue declines as a result of the PC’s decline.

But HP has seen its stock price rise more than 20 percent this year, partly because investors see that it generates a lot of cash for large dividends. That is one reason why HP split into two entities last year, so that investors could realize the investment opportunity. HP generated $1.1 billion in cash in the quarter.

HP, originally founded in 1939, is the second-largest PC maker behind Lenovo, and it is the largest maker of printers.

HP is valued at $24 billion, while HP Enterprise is worth $36 billion. HP said its PC division, Personal Systems, saw flat revenue compared to a year ago (up 2 percent in constant currency) with a 4.4 percent operating margin. Commercial net revenue was down 3 percent, and consumer net revenue was up 8 percent. Total units shipped were up 4 percent, with notebooks up 12 percent and desktops down 6 percent.

Printing revenue was down 14 percent from a year ago (down 10 percent in constant currency), with a 20.4 percent operating margin. Total hardware units shipped were down 10 percent. Commercial printing hardware was down 2 percent and consumer was down 14 percent. Supplies were down 18 percent.

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For its outlook, HP predicts net income per share of 34 cents to 37 cents in the fourth fiscal quarter.