H-P Earnings Beat, Revs Miss

Times are tough these days for PC makers. Hewlett-Packard (HPQ - Analyst Report), which reported fiscal first quarter 2012 earnings after the bell Wednesday, beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings but is seeing its shares selling off in the after-market, similar to the way Dell, Inc.'s (DELL - Analyst Report) did yesterday.

Hewlett-Packard reported earnings of 92 cents per share, a 5.75% positive surprise, on revenues totaling $30 billion in the quarter. But this was a pretty low hurdle to get over; in fact, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter had not moved from 87 cents per share the entire quarter, despite 2 analysts upwardly revising estimates within the past month.

This is typical of H-P's relationship with the analysts covering the company: tepid, modest growth expected, and a tepid, modest beat on the bottom line. H-P has averaged a positive earnings surprise of 3.8% over the past 4 quarters.

So Why the Sell-Off?

Though the bottom line posted a beat, revenues missed. The Zacks Consensus was looking for $30.8 billion in sales for the quarter.

Further, guidance for H-P's Q2 fell to 90-91 cents, lower than the 95 cents expected from the Zacks Consensus. Also, consumer client PC sales fell 25% in the quarter, and consumer printer sales were down 15%. These are obviously not very good numbers, so the headline earnings beat looks to be masking some deeper issues at H-P.

Everyone knows CEO Meg Whitman is doing plenty of heavy lifting to get H-P back on track following the tenure of her predecessor Leo Apotheker. And the world's biggest PC maker is looking for volume growth to increase considerably in 2012 from the previous couple years. But just when H-P will finally gain some traction and see top-line growth is the question.

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Read the full analyst report on DELL