Hewlett-Packard last night said that its fourth-quarter net income rose by 28% to $2.16 billion from $1.7 billion a year earlier as its notebook PC sales helped extend the company's lead over Dell. The company employs 4,000 people in Ireland.
The California-based company - the biggest personal-computer maker - said that excluding some costs, profit was 86 cents a share, exceeding analysts' estimates for the 11th quarter in a row.
Sales rose 15% to $28.3 billion in the three months, which ended October 31. That beat Hewlett-Packard's forecast by more than $1 billion. Analysts had projected sales of $27.3 billion and profit of 82 cents.
HP's CEO Officer Mark Hurd, who cut 15,000 jobs and closed offices to buoy earnings since taking over in 2005, is winning sales of PCs, printers, software and server computers. Lower prices for components, such as memory, also boosted profit.
The company, whose stock reached a seven-year high this month, said today it will buy back as much as $8 billion in shares.
Hewlett-Packard's PC sales rose 30% last quarter to $10.1 billion after unit shipments jumped 31%.
Notebook sales climbed 49%, while desktop-computer revenue increased 15%. Earnings at the PC unit rose 75% to $589m. The profit margin, or profit as a percentage of sales, widened to 5.8% from 4.3%.
To bolster returns in software, Hurd has spent more than $6.5 billion on six acquisitions. That has helped turn a money-losing unit two years ago into Hewlett-Packard's fastest-growing business.
Software revenue doubled to $698m last quarter. The division made $177m in operating profit.
Sales of printers and supplies such as ink rose 4% to $7.6 billion. Profit increased 1.3% to $1.09 billion.
