Hewlett Packard profits beat Wall Street expectations

Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Are people printing and buying PCs again? Hewlett-Packard sales slipped sharply across the board, but earnings inched above Wall Street expectations, and shares soared in response.

The struggling company, one of the oldest in Silicon Valley, has struggled with the move away from personal computers and toward mobile devices.

While their profit tipped upward, their revenues dropped off in five out of six of the company's business segments. Revenue declined 2.8 percent to $29.13 billion.

Revenues from consumer PCs fell 10 percent, and software revenues fell 9 percent from a year ago. But its networking and standard server businesses saw greater sales, which means that the company might be taking a greater share away from Cisco, which reported sales below Wall Street expectations for the quarter.

HP earnings were $1.41 billion, or 73 cents per share, which is up from a loss of $6.85 billion, or $3.49 per share, in the year-ago period. But on an adjusted basis, earnings were $1.01 per share, a penny higher than analysts expected.

The company also has new products coming out, including a line of new tablets entering in 2014. "The innovation engine is alive and well; that is an untold story here," said CEO Meg Whitman in an interview with USA Today.

For one of the world's largest information technology companies, the shift into "new IT" will take time to show significant revenues coming from the restructuring of product lines. But Whitman has been sure to look into shifting toward tablets, cloud computing, renting software online and printing remotely from mobile devices to kiosks.

HP shares rose almost 8 percent into Wednesday morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange as investor confidence rose with the company's positive outlook.

[NY Times] [MarketWatch] [USA Today]