H-P's Earnings Top Views Despite Revenue Drop--2nd Update

By Josh Beckerman 

Hewlett-Packard Co. on Thursday reported a 7% drop in revenue for the April quarter, hurt by declines in all its major segments, and issued downbeat earnings guidance for the current quarter.

Still, shares of H-P--off 16% in 2015--rose less than 1% to $34.10 in after-hours as the company's per-share earnings in the first quarter were better-than-expected and the company maintained its year outlook.

The company also named the chief financial officers for the two companies to be created by its previously announced, which H-P says remains on track to occur later this year.

In October, Hewlett-Packard unveiled plans to separate its personal-computer and printer businesses, to be called HP Inc., from its corporate hardware and services operations, which has been billed as the growth engine and will be known as Hewlett-Packard Enterprise.

The company said Thursday that current Chief Financial Officer Cathie Lesjak will be the financial chief of HP Inc. Tim Stonesifer, meanwhile, will be the chief financial officer of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. He is currently the chief financial officer of the company's enterprise group.

For the second quarter ended April 30, H-P's earnings fell to $1 billion, or 55 cents a share, from $1.3 billion, or 66 cents a share. Excluding certain items, the company's per-share earnings were 87 cents, below the 88 cents from a year ago but above the average analyst estimate of 85 cents.

The company's revenue of $25.5 billion fell below the $25.635 billion projected by Wall Street analysts. The company had warned that the strong dollar was hurting results. On a constant-currency basis, the decline was 2%, H-P said.

H-P expects per-share earnings excluding items of 83 cents to 87 cents for the current quarter. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had projected 87 cents.

For the year ending in October, H-P maintained its estimate for earnings excluding items of $3.53 to $3.73 a share.

Write to Josh Beckerman at [e-mail]

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