Hewlett-Packard Co. reported a slight boost in quarterly earnings, inching past Wall Street’s expectations, but the company’s new leader acknowledged that “overall performance leaves room for improvement.”
For the three months ended April 30, Palo Alto-based H-P reported a profit of $966 million, or 33 cents per share, up 9 percent from $884 million, or 29 cents per share, in the second fiscal quarter of 2004.
Excluding special items, including a $107 million tax adjustment, H-P would have earned $1.07 billion, or 37 cents per share, up 4 percent from $1.03 billion, or 34 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier.
Quarterly revenue was $21.6 billion, up 7 percent from $20.1 billion in the same quarter a year ago.
H-P’s quarterly results were 1 cent ahead of expectations of analysts polled by Thomson Financial, who forecast 36 cents per share on sales of nearly $21.4 billion.
“H-P had a solid quarter,” said Mark Hurd, whom the board named chief executive and president in March. “Nevertheless, our overall performance leaves room for improvement in many of our businesses. We expect to provide details as soon as our plans are finalized that will move us toward that objective.”
Tuesday’s earnings announcement caps several tumultuous quarters for H-P, which in February fired Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina for failing to slash costs and boost sales quickly enough.
