Technology giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) has reported a five per cent jump in net earnings to $2.3 billion in the three-month ended April 30, 2011 on account of robust performance of BRIC countries as well as strong demand by commercial sector. In the year-ago period, the entity had net earnings of $2.2 billion, HP said in a statement.
The company’s net revenues was up three per cent from the year-ago period to $31.6 billion in the second quarter of FY11.
HP said results were largely driven by performance in the commercial sector as businesses continued to spend on technology.
The company experienced uneven consumer performance across its product categories during the quarter with continued softness in consumer PCs across all geographies. “HP executed well and delivered a solid quarter,” the company’s President and CEO Mr Leo Apotheker said.
In terms of geographical location, BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) were the best performer with revenue increasing 19 per cent. While revenue was up 1 per cent in the Americas, it was flat in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and up 4 per cent in Asia Pacific.
During the quarter, revenue in the Personal Systems Group, which includes PCs, was down 5 per cent from a year ago. While commercial PCs were up 13 per cent, consumer PCs were down 23 per cent.
The imaging and printing group saw five per cent growth in the quarter. Services were up two per cent, enterprise servers, storage and networking revenue climbed 15 per cent per cent. HP Software and financial sectors each were up 17 per cent.
Looking ahead to the third quarter of fiscal 2011, HP estimates revenue of about $31.1 billion to $31.3 billion. For fiscal 2011, the company currently expects revenue in the range of $129 billion to $130 billion.