Last Tuesday, November 26, HP released a forecast for its profit in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, which turned out to be lower than Wall Street’s preliminary expectations and is evidence of unstable consumer demand in the personal computer market and caused the value of the company’s shares to fall by 8% during extended trading.
It is worth noting that all manufacturers of personal computers faced a decline in sales after the so-called boom observed during the coronavirus pandemic when due to various restrictions aimed at countering the spread of the disease, there was an intensive scaling of the practice of remote work or work at home. PCs powered by artificial intelligence have already become popular in the corporate and educational sectors, but have not yet become the driving force of demand in the entire category of appropriate products.
Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa stated that personal computers, which integrated AI technologies, did not increase sales in the appropriate market, because buyers have not yet seen the advantages of this offer.
Research firm IDC has released data according to which global PC shipments totaled 68.8 million in the third quarter of 2024. This indicator decreased by 2.4% year-on-year.
HP predicts that its adjusted profit per share in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025 will be fixed in the range of 70 cents to 76 cents. It is worth noting that the preliminary LSEG estimate provided that this figure would be 85 cents.
HP chief financial officer Karen Parkhill said that the firm has stock-compensation expense that’s higher in Q1 and it gets better in subsequent quarters. She also noted that HP is taking pricing and cost actions to offset some of the margin headwinds in personal systems and that’s going to have a more significant impact in the back half.
The company’s revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2024 was fixed at $14.1 billion. This indicator increased by 1.7% year-on-year. The adjusted profit of the company for the mentioned period amounted to 93 cents per equity.
As we have reported earlier, HP to Get $50 Million for Semiconductor Tech Project.
