HP Q4 ConCall with Hurd

Conference call on the 17th, with Hurd and Kathryn Huberty...highlights.

Summary - Fourth Quarter Highlights

Revenue totaled $33.6 billion, up 19% year-over-year or up 16% in constant currency from $28.3 million in 2007.

- The firm generated 68% of its total revenue from outside the United States, revenue in EMEA was up 22%, the Americas increased 17%, and Asia-Pacific increased 14%.

- Gross margin was 22.9%, down 180 basis points from 24.7% one year ago, driven primarily by the addition of EDS, which reduced gross margins by 140 basis points and, to a lesser extent, by a more normalized impact from commodity pricing compared with a year ago.
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- Imaging and Printing reported revenue of $7.5 billion, down 1% year-on-year as supplies revenue growth of 9% was offset by declines in Commercial and Consumer hardware revenue of 10% and 21% respectively.

- Operating margin increased 100 basis points to 15.5% as strong Supplies growth and cost reductions were partially offset by discounting.

- The firm gained share while total printer units were down 8% and Consumer and Commercial printer hardware units declined 8% and 9%, respectively.

- Revenue in HP Software grew 13% to $855 million and BTO outgrew its primarily competitors, increasing 15% from the prior year.

- Other software, which includes Open Call, Business Intelligence, and Information Management, grew 1% as the strength in the information management business was offset by declines in Open call.

- Software posted operating profit of $195 million or 22.8% of revenue.

- HP Services, with the addition of EDS, doubled its revenue to $8.6 billion and reported solid operating profit of $920 million or 10.6% of revenue.

- For the period between the August 26 acquisition date and October 31, EDS delivered revenue of $3.9 billion as customers across all regions continue to respond favorably to the combined services business.

- Demand remains solid, with a healthy mix of new and existing customers and integration plans are on track as the firm eliminated over 2,300 positions in connection with the EDS integration.

- HP Financial Services had revenue of $691 million, up 5% year-over-year, and generated operating margin of 7.4%.

- The firm continue to apply the same rigorous process for assessing the creditworthiness of its customers and the quality of its receivables.

Fiscal 2009 Outlook:

- The firm expects revenue of approximately $32 to $32.5 billion in the first quarter and approximately $127.5 to $130 billion for the full year.
- It plans to cut over $1 billion on a constant currency basis from the cost structure in 2009.

Brian Alexander (Raymond James): In IPG, what''s happening to the installed base in Consumer and Commercial hardware in light of the unit declines?

Mark V. Hurd:The installed base is staying installed longer. That''s clearly what''s going on and you can see us gaining share. We believe our installed base is sort of - depending on what country and what segment and what price category - we believe we''re doing quite well.

Certainly, you''re seeing a trend towards wireless in the home, which in some cases has fewer units doing just as much printing as the home used to, so for us, that''s not necessarily a bad answer. We sort of like the answer, where we can sell less hardware to effectively print as much as the ecosystem has been printing.

We have to be cautious here because when we get too aggressive on price, in many cases we''re accelerating the movement of our own installed base. The reason we put the installed base out there is to print. So for us, lower unit growth is not necessarily bad unless it means we''re losing share.

Catherine A. Lesjak: As long as people continue to print on HP printers so that we have a healthy installed base, having them hold on to their printers longer and delay upgrading is actually positive for earnings for us.

They are buying the same amount of supplies and we are not having to make that kind of next investment in terms of placing a hardware unit that’s either at a negative margin or at a very low margin.