HP’s adjusted earnings per share fell 12% year-over-year

Reporting its results for the latest quarter, Hewlett-Packard (HP) said that even though the year-on-year earnings of the company witnessed a fall, the figures still exceeded the expectations of the Wall Street analysts.

According to the details shared by HP, the company’s fiscal fourth quarter - which ended in October - saw a 12 percent drop in adjusted earnings per share, to $1.17 per share, from the same quarter last year figures. The adjusted net revenue plunged 3 percent year-on-year to $32.3 billion.

More specifically, the services business of the company reported a 2 percent quarterly growth over the year to $9.3 billion; while the software division saw a much more noteworthy rise of 28 percent. However, the enterprise servers unit of the company recorded a 4 percent drop in revenues to $5.7 billion.

The quarterly earnings’ figures posted by HP beat the average estimates of the analysts in a Thomas Reuters poll. The analysts had expected that the earnings of the company during the mentioned quarter will be $1.13 a share; with its sales being $32 billion.

In a press release pertaining to the results, HP’s new CEO Meg Whitman said that there was a “great opportunity” for the company to build on its robust hardware, software, and services’ divisions with leading market positions, customer relationships, and intellectual property.

Noting that HP needed to “get back to the business fundamentals in fiscal 2012,” Whitman said that it was essential that the company should make “prudent investments in the business and driving more consistent execution.”