Hewlett-Packard posted a slight rise in quarterly profit this week, fuelled by revenue gains across all of its businesses.
The company, which last week ousted its controversial chief executive, Ms Carly Fiorina, said the operating profit margin at its long-struggling personal computer business rose to 2.1 per cent as sales rose 12 per cent from a year ago. HP employs over 2,000 people in Leixlip and Dublin.
"We have yet another positive surprise coming from computing," said Mr Mark Stahlman, an analyst with Caris & Co, referring to better-than-expected results from Intel, Apple, IBM, Dell and HP.
"Looks like 2005 is going to be a good year," he said.
HP's net income for the first fiscal quarter ended January 31st rose to $943 million (€723 million), or 32 cents a share, from $936 million, or 30 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue rose to $21.5 billion from $19.5 billion.
Excluding items, HP posted a profit of 37 cents a share, compared with 35 cents a share a year ago, on a comparable basis.
HP's interim chief executive, chief financial officer Mr Bob Wayman, said the company still had much to do.
"While we continue to make progress in growing our top line, there is work to be done to improve our profitability," Mr Wayman said in a statement.
"As the board conducts a CEO search, our management team is focused on driving improved execution to serve our customers, strengthen our competitiveness and improve shareholder value."
Despite the improvements, one negative was narrowing profit margins in its mainstay imaging and printing business amid strong pricing pressure from rivals, including Dell and Lexmark , which provides printers to Dell for resale under its own name. The company vowed to take aggressive action to win back market share.
"They're going to get more aggressive in the next three to six months to get that share back," said Mr Dan Niles, chief executive of money management firm Neuberger Berman Technology Management, which doesn't own HP stock. "That's going to be a bit of a negative."
For the current second quarter, HP said it expects earnings per share before items between 35 cents and 37 cents, on revenue of $21.2 billion to $21.6 billion.
Analysts on average now expect HP to post a profit of 36 cents a share on revenue of $21.1 billion in the quarter.
