Hewlett-Packard Co on Monday reported a 5 percent jump in net income driven by corporate spending that was offset by weak consumer demand, reflecting the industry’s lopsided recovery.
The world’s biggest technology company also raised its profit forecast for the new fiscal year. The numbers were posted after the market closed and HP’s shares rose in after-hours trading.
Purchases by big companies are buoying growth. They have thawed budgets that were frozen during the depth of the recession.
Meanwhile, unemployment worries have sapped consumers’ appetite for computers and state governments in the US have slashed spending to plug budget holes.
Other technology major leaguers, such as Cisco Systems Inc and Intel Corp, have issued warnings.
HP said its net income was US$2.54 billion, or US$1.10 per share, in its fiscal fourth quarter, which ended on Oct. 31. That was up 5 percent from US$2.41 billion, or US$0.99 per share, last year.
Excluding items, the company earned US$1.33 per share, topping the US$1.27 per share that analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting, excluding items.
Revenue was US$33.28 billion, an 8 percent increase over last year.
Analysts expected US$32.75 billion.
The higher guidance calls for profit of US$5.16 to US$5.26 per share for the fiscal year ending in October next year. The previous forecast was US$5.05 to US$5.15 per share.
The higher figures include a gain of US$0.04 per share from real estate sales.
HP’s earnings conference call marked the first chance for investors and analysts to hear from the company’s new CEO, Leo Apotheker, since he started the job three weeks ago.
He takes over the company as it’s in mid-stride in a radical makeover. Mark Hurd, HP’s former CEO, was spending billions of dollars in acquisitions to make the company less of a one-trick pony that was dependent on printer ink for most of its profits, before he was ousted in the wake of a sexual harassment investigation.
Apotheker identified software and research as some of the areas he will focus on as CEO.
Building or buying better software would close a gap that exists between HP and IBM Corp. Pouring more funds into research will help HP tamp down a frequent criticism of the Mark Hurd years, in which research was among the areas clipped in broad cost-cutting.
Apotheker also is trying to win over HP’s workers.
He is restoring the vast -majority of employees’ salaries to their levels before an across-the-board cut that Hurd implemented in February last year. HP is also proposing a program that would allow employees to buy HP shares at a five percent discount.
Shares rose US$1.30, or 3 percent, to US$44.55 in extended trading, after the results were reported. The stock had risen US$0.76, or 1.8 percent, to US$43.25 at the end of regular-session trading.
The stock is still trading below its levels at the time of Hurd’s departure. It is down 7 percent, a decline that has wiped out US$10 billion in shareholder wealth.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day