HP disclosed its fiscal 2014 full-year and fourth quarter earnings report on Tuesday, showing mixed results following the start of its breakup plan. The US-based technology giant reported a fourth quarter net income of $2 billion, or $0.70 earnings per share, down 4 per cent from the same period a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings were $1.06 per share on revenue of $28.4 billion, 2 per cent below a year earlier. Net earnings also fell 6 per cent to $1.3 billion for the quarter which ended Oct 3.
Hewlett-Packard announced its plans to split into two organisations during the quarter, and has assigned a team of 450 people to smooth the business transition. HP's chief executive said that the company is looking at methods to allow the two operations to share in their component purchasing to contain the prices of their respective products after the split, according to The New York Times.
HP's enterprise group and enterprise services saw revenue decline last quarter by four and seven per cent year-over-year, respectively. Its software, printing and financial services saw single-digit declines too. However personal systems, which consists of consumer and business desktops and laptops, saw a combination of a 2 per cent decline in desktop units and an 8 per cent surge of notebook units resulting in a total PC unit sales rise of 5 per cent.
Net earnings of $5 billion were reported for its fiscal year, a year-on-year decline of 2 per cent, whilst revenue saw a 1 per cent slide down to $111.5 billion. CEO Meg Whitman assured shareholders that the company's turnaround path still is on track, and puts the numbers in a positive light, noting that gross profit margins were higher in every major part of the company for the first time in years.
"In FY14, we stabilized our revenue trajectory, strengthened our operations, showed strong financial discipline, and once again made innovation the cornerstone of our company. Our product roadmaps are the best they've been in years and our partners and customers believe in us. There's still a lot left to do, but our efforts to date, combined with the separation we announced in October, sets the stage for accelerated progress in FY15 and beyond," Whitman said.
The company's fiscal Q1 earnings guidance were set at $0.89 to $0.93 per share, and is expecting shares to be in the range of $3.83 to $4.03. Wall Street is expecting HP to deliver first quarter earnings of at least $0.93 cents per share on revenue of $27.55 billion.
Looking at future products from HP, TIME magazine suggests there are signs of a new innovative HP being shown in the areas of printing, personal computing and data analytics. Particularly, in consumer product terms, this regards the HP Multi Jet Fusion 3D printing technology and the oddly named Sprout all-in-one computer system. TIME also highlights the future potential of The Machine project which HP says "will reinvent the fundamental architecture of computers to enable a quantum leap in performance and efficiency, while lowering costs over the long term and improving security".
