Give a hand to Hewlett-Packard (News - Alert). The computing giant has reported that quarterly revenue last quarter rose for the first time in three years.
Is this the start of a turnaround for HP?
Well, maybe.
Net revenue for the second quarter was $27.6 billion, a one percent improvement from the same period last year.
HP profit, on the other hand, ebbed to $985 million compared to $1.39 billion in the same period a year earlier. This is due partially to cost savings from an effort to find new momentum as people make the shift from personal computers to tablets. Revenue grew in every market except for Russia and China, according to the quarterly earnings call from the company.
"Overall, I'm very pleased with the progress we've made," CEO Meg Whitman noted in the earnings release. "When I look at the way the business is performing, the pipeline of innovation and the daily feedback that I receive from our customers and partners, my confidence in the turnaround grows stronger."
Yet, HP shares slipped a fraction of a percent to $34.86 in trading after-market when the figures from the company were released.
The bright spot for the company was sales of home and business computers despite the overall pressure on the personal computer market due to the rise of tablets and smartphones.
The overall problem is that computers may have done well for the company recently, but that market can’t be a bright spot for long; desktops and personal computers, like the newspaper, are on a one-way course downward.
Whitman implied as much in the earnings statement.
"The PC market, I mean right up through tablets, is flat to declining," Whitman said. "We think that will continue and we think that we can continue to gain share in a flat market."
She based her confidence in HP's product lineup and relationships with partners, saying the company's PC business "has some wind beneath its wings."
So cheers to HP for now. But how long can it continue the trend?
Edited by Rory J. Thompson