The HP (NYSE HPQ) Q2 2009 earnings announcement conference call is continuing into the Q&A, but here's my regular quarterly summary of the printer and supplies details released as part of the presentation.
Looking for any good news, or at least anything better than the rest, is a challenge. The "Indigo page growth" is the only positive percentage on the chart, but at 15% that's stair-stepped down significantly from the baseline 40% growth we were seeing for a long period of quarters. Operating margins, at 18.2%, seem amazingly good, in light of everything else, until considering that the lower-margin hardware units comprised only 31% of HP IPG revenues for the second fiscal quarter of 2009. (Seems not long ago when that metric passed the 50:50 mark.) And profit dollars, still over $1Billion, are definitely nothing to sneeze at!
One question that comes to mind relates to the success of HP's initiative to make inkjet more successful in the office. The color laser printer category's 42% year-over-year decline could at least in part be attributed to success on the inkjet front. (Disclaimer -- my multimedia capability failed me for the conference call, so I'm relying on the transcripts, when I will see if someone else listening in addressed the question with HP management.)
Looking for any good news, or at least anything better than the rest, is a challenge. The "Indigo page growth" is the only positive percentage on the chart, but at 15% that's stair-stepped down significantly from the baseline 40% growth we were seeing for a long period of quarters. Operating margins, at 18.2%, seem amazingly good, in light of everything else, until considering that the lower-margin hardware units comprised only 31% of HP IPG revenues for the second fiscal quarter of 2009. (Seems not long ago when that metric passed the 50:50 mark.) And profit dollars, still over $1Billion, are definitely nothing to sneeze at!
One question that comes to mind relates to the success of HP's initiative to make inkjet more successful in the office. The color laser printer category's 42% year-over-year decline could at least in part be attributed to success on the inkjet front. (Disclaimer -- my multimedia capability failed me for the conference call, so I'm relying on the transcripts, when I will see if someone else listening in addressed the question with HP management.)
Comments