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Investing.com – HP stock (NYSE:HPQ) rose 7.2% in premarket trading Wednesday after the company followed up its strong fourth-quarter results with a robust outlook for the year.
Most business segments came off their pandemic-driven highs but growing demand in the commercial vertical and a shift to higher-value products led the company to raise its share of the Windows market sequentially, according to a statement. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) rolled out its latest OS Windows 11 during the quarter.
Commercial PC net revenue increased 25%, more than offsetting the 3% erosion in consumer PC revenue and a mere 1% rise in sales of printing systems. That allowed its fourth-quarter net revenue to grow over 9% to $16.7 billion. Adjusted EPS of 94 cents was ahead of the company’s own forecast as well as analysts’.
The company focused more on business clients during the quarter, as supply constraints forced it to narrow its sales focus, CEO Enrique Lores told CNBC.
The company sold 12% fewer Notebooks while selling 2% more desktop units in the three months ended October 31. That represents a slight cooling off after more than a year of record sales of laptops, PCs and printers to service the working-from-home boom.
In the ongoing quarter, the first of its new fiscal year, the company expects its adjusted EPS to touch $1.02 at the midpoint of its guidance range. For the full-year, HP expects to generate free cash flow of at least $4.5 billion, higher than 2021’s $4.2 billion.
