For the fourth quarter, Hewlett-Packard reported earnings that were better than expected. For the quarter, H.P. reported net income of $1.41 billion, or 73 cents a share. This was compared with a loss of $6.85 billion, or $3.49 a share, in the same quarter a year earlier. Revenue for the quarter was reported to be $29.1 billion. This was a decrease of 3 percent from the same period a year ago. Net income came in above the expectations of Wall Street analysts at $1.01, excluding one-time charges.
Even though the overall performance was better than expected, the company saw lower revenue in five of its six business segments Sales of business hardware were up a modest 2 percent, the only business segment to rise. The company is also dealing with the collapse of demand for many of its key products, like personal computers. Revenue from consumer PCs fell 10 percent from a year earlier while revenue from software fell 9 percent.
H.P. is one of the world’s largest information technology companies. The company found itself in a woeful position 26 months ago, resulting in Meg Whitman taking over as chief executive. Ms. Whitman said in an interview that she had been successful at building up H.P.’s cash position and had lowered its debt. She had also seen success at retooling businesses and shuffling executives into positions better suited to their skills.
The company said that it was making great strides towards its goal of moving the company towards “a new style of I.T.” In the future, H.P. customers will pay for technology-infused experiences, like the ability to print from a mobile phone to a kiosk at a FedEx store, and rent software over the Internet. Ms. Whitman said, “This is a pretty big change. We need to do it with speed, and we need to leverage it with scale.”
In the next few weeks, the company is planning to release new kinds of tablet computers that use Google’s Android operating system instead of the Windows software from Microsoft in time for the Christmas shopping season. However, some of the efforts that the company is making, like the kiosk printing, three-dimensional printers, or H.P.’s cloud computing business, may not earn significant revenue until they have been available for several years.
