HP Drops Quarter Forecast, Hints at Layoffs

HP (NYSE:HPQ) CEO Leo Apotheker hinted at layoffs in a memo to top executives and then pulled the company’s earnings announcement forward by a day after that memo was leaked and a story published by Bloomberg. The HP layoff news comes a week after Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) CEO John Chambers promised $1 billion in cost cutting by October, including workforce reductions.

HP, announcing results a day early, revised its third quarter and full year forecast down on the market effects of the earthquake in Japan and softness in the consumer PC business as well as lower-than-expected profitability in services.

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HP cut about $1 billion from its full year revenue forecast, saying it now expects full year revenue in the range of $129 billion to $130 billion. Third quarter revenue is now expected to be between $31.1 billion to $31.3 billion.

For the second quarter HP reported revenue of $31.6 billion, up 3 percent from the same period a year ago or 1 percent when adjusted for the effects of currency.

Here’s a quick look at how HP’s business units did:

• Personal Systems Group – revenue down 5 percent year over year with a 5.7 percent operating margin. Commercial Client (PC) revenue growth was 13 percent. Consumer Client revenue declined 23 percent.
• Imaging and Printing Group – revenue up 5 percent year over year with a 17 percent operating margin.
• Services – revenue up 2 percent year over year with a 15.2 percent operating margin. "To improve long-term performance, HP is accelerating alignment of the services business with the company’s overall strategy, including making investments to drive more value-added solutions and migration to the cloud," the company said in a statement
• Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking – revenue up 15 percent year over year with a 13.8 percent operating margin.
• HP Software – revenue up 17 percent year over year with a 20.2 percent operating margin. HP Software revenue was driven by strong growth in licenses and services of 29 percent and 22 percent, respectively.
• HP Financial Services – revenue grew 17 percent year over year with a 9.4 percent operating margin. Financial Services results included a double-digit growth in lease volume.