HP Takes a Minor Hit During Holiday Quarter

History will show the resurgence of Hewlett-Packard continued during its first fiscal quarter of 2007, which ended January 31. But if Michael Dell, the newly reappointed CEO of Dell Computer, has been practicing his "last laugh" just in case he should need it, that practice may yet have reason to pay off. While last year's scandals didn't sink HP, they did hit the company in its weak spot: US revenues.

The big news reported on the wire services this afternoon is HP's 26% year-over-year net revenues gain to $1.54 billion on just over $25 billion in revenue, which remains impressive, even though fiscal 2006 marked the beginning of HP's comeback. But it's also a 9% revenue drop over the previous quarter, at a time when the holiday season normally boosts sales, and when Windows Vista should have provided some extra uplift.

HP's biggest revenue growth, the company reported, is in its Asia Pacific and emerging markets. In the US - where Dell is still the #1 computer brand, though it ceded that title to HP worldwide - revenue growth declined to below 5% for the quarter, resuming a downward trend for the US market that CEO Mark Hurd had hoped was reversing itself in Q4 2006.

The Personal Systems Group, which sells consumer PCs retail, actually did quite well, posting operating profit of $414 million for the quarter, or about 4.7% of revenue of $8.72 billion for that division - more than doubling both profit and margin from FY Q1 2005. Among unit sales, 47% of systems sold were notebook PCs, 44% were desktops. It's really the Imaging and Printing Group, however, that truly holds up the company, with about $1.07 billion in profit on about $7 billion in revenue. (Here you see why it's nicer to be in the printer business than the PC business.)

The bad news is everywhere else. HP's Enterprise Storage and Servers division took a little blow, earning $416 million on $4.45 billion in revenue - a decline of 17.2% for the quarter. This at a time when analysts had estimated that servers would help compensate for what they predicted to be a decline in consumer PC sales; for HP, it ended up being the other way around. The company's other three divisions showed revenue declines for the quarter as well.

With earnings per share at 57? for the last fiscal quarter, and guidance for the next quarter showing EPS at 57?, HP's accountants are signaling that the storm may be passing. Revenue for the next quarter is projected to be half a billion lower than for Q1, but such declines in the early months of the year are considered seasonal and typical. But with HP's cash-on-hand also taking a mysterious dip - down to $4.6 billion net the previous quarter versus $11.2 billion in Q4 2006 - it may need to be choosy about how it applies any more restructuring charges going forward.

Given the boardroom scandal that plagued HP last year, the company could have taken a much worse hit than it did. Still, it's not invulnerable, and today's news about HP's weakness in the US could give its principal competition some breathing room.