HP Beats Estimates but Reports Weak Consumer PC Sales

VentureBeat:

HP beats estimates but reports weak consumer PC sales. Leo Apotheker, who took over as chief executive in October after former boss Mark Hurd was fired in an ethics scandal, said, “The steepness of our Q2 decline (in consumer PC sales) is greater than we anticipated.”

He said HP saw uneven consumer performance across its product categories during the quarter and continued softness in consumer PCs across all geographies. That makes you wonder if strong sales of iPads and other tablets are hurting HP. HP’s personal systems group sales fell 5 percent, while consumer PC sales fell 23 percent.

The stock took a beating on this news.

As for where HP is headed with PCs, PCWorld reports:

Hewlett-Packard considered using Intel’s Thunderbolt interconnect in new desktop PCs announced Monday, but is sticking with USB 3.0 because of wider support, a company official said.

“We did look at [Thunderbolt]. We’re still looking into it. Haven’t found a value proposition yet,” said Xavier Lauwaert, worldwide marketing manager for desktops at HP.

Which means they’re betting against Apple.

★ Tuesday, 17 May 2011