HP's fourth quarter net profit fell 16%

HP’s latest quarterly financial report released on Thursday (February 21) showed that demand for personal computers declined due to the influence of tablet PCs and smart phones. HP’s fourth-quarter net profit fell to US$1.2 billion, or 63 cents per share, down from a year earlier. 16%, far higher than the analyst's expected goal.

HP CEO Meg Whitman stated in the statement: “The reorganization plan has begun to work. This is the result of the measures we took to lay the groundwork for HP’s future development in 2012. I’m The performance of the rest of the year is full of confidence."

HP said that the company’s fourth-quarter net profit was US$1.2 billion, or 63 cents per share, down 16% from a year earlier. Fourth-quarter revenue fell 6% to $28.4 billion.

Wall Street analysts had previously forecast a net profit target of 71 cents per share with a revenue target of $27.8 billion.

HP is one of the world's largest PC and server vendors. Due to the increasing popularity of tablet PCs and smart phones, the market demand for PC products has been declining. As more and more enterprise users gradually look down on brand value and purchase cheap equipment from Asian manufacturers, the profitability of server products is also declining.

Under Whitman's leadership, HP has been focusing on restructuring its printers and high-end server business to integrate more data analysis software. However, she also warned that the restructuring plan may not be completed until 2017. In 2012, HP announced that it intends to lay off 29,000 employees.

Two days before Hewlett-Packard issued its earnings report, its major competitor in the United States, Dell, just released its latest financial report. Dell's financial report shows that its revenue and profits have declined.

Dell said its first-quarter revenue was 14.3 billion U.S. dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 11%; net profit was 530 million U.S. dollars or 30 cents per share, a year-on-year decrease of 31%.

Dell founder Michael Dell has proposed a privatization proposal in which the company’s valuation is US$24.4 billion. Dell hopes to privatize the company from Wall Street's attention.