Technology giant Hewlett-Packard has reported a 44 per cent plunge in net income to $1.5 billon for the quarter ended January 31, 2012, due to weak sales of personal computers and printers.

In the year-ago period, the entity had a net income of $2.6 billion, HP said in a statement.

The company’s net revenue was down 7 per cent at $30 billion in the quarter under review from the year-ago period. HP’s quarterly numbers were dragged down due to weakness in sales of PCs and printers.

“In the first quarter, we delivered on our Q1 outlook and remained focused on the fundamentals to drive long-term sustainable returns,” HP President and CEO, Ms Meg Whitman, said.

“We are taking necessary steps to improve execution, increase effectiveness and capitalise on emerging opportunities to reassert HP’s technology leadership,” she added.

Ms Whitman, who took over the top job in September last year after the firing of Mr Leo Apotheker, has been trying to turn around HP’s businesses.

Sectoral analysis

In terms of sectoral analysis, HP’s personal computers business fell 15 per cent to $8.9 billion, printing and imaging was down 7 per cent at $6.3 billion and the computer server and data storage operations declined 10 per cent to $5 billion.

However, revenues from services grew 1 per cent to $8.6 billion and HP’s business software division rose 30 per cent to $946 million. HP’s revenue was down in all regions of the world.

Revenues

Revenues from BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), which accounted 10 per cent of total HP revenue, fell 13 per cent to $3.1 billion in the first quarter of FY’12.

In the Americas, first quarter revenue was $13.2 billion, down 9 per cent year over year, revenues from Europe, West Asia and Africa declined by 4 per cent to $11.7 billion and revenues in Asia Pacific was $5.2 billion, representing a 10 per cent decrease.

Looking ahead, HP expects earnings in the range of $68 to 71 cents a share during the second quarter of fiscal 2012. Besides, the company reiterated its full year fiscal 2012 earnings outlook of around $3.20.

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