The job cuts, announced on Thursday (27 February) alongside the firm’s first-quarter results, will be a “key lever” to help secure the firm against macro and geopolitical uncertainty, HP CFO Karen Parkhill told investors in an earnings call reported by CRN.
HP’s first-quarter 2025 results showed the US-headquartered group with net revenues of $13.5bn, up 2.4% on the first quarter of 2024. The company achieved an operating profit of $984m, or 7.3%, just below Q1 2024’s 8.4% mark.
“We are pleased with our Q1 performance, achieving revenue growth for the third straight quarter and advancing our strategy to lead the future of work,” said Enrique Lores, HP president and CEO.
“Our progress was fueled by a strong commercial business in Personal Systems and momentum in our key growth areas, including AI PCs. We are focused on taking decisive action to address evolving market conditions in the near-term, while investing in our long-term growth.”
“In Q1 we drove solid progress against our financial commitments for the year and are raising our Future Ready savings target from $1.6 to $1.9 billion dollars by the end of fiscal year 2025,” added Parkhill.
“We are holding our outlook for the year and remain focused on disciplined execution as we continue to invest for the future.”
Printing revenues at the firm have fallen 2.4% year-on-year in the period, though remain in the $4bn-plus range that the firm’s print segment has occupied for the past several years. The segment has been bolstered by a 5% increase in total hardware unit sales and a 5% growth in consumer printing revenues, offset by a fall in commercial print revenues by 7%.
Commercial printing accounted for 27% of the firm’s print revenue, with print supplies making up 66% of revenue and consumer print just 7%.
HP’s results announcement reflected an ongoing focus on earnings per share (EPS) as a measure of the company’s performance, with the firm estimating its diluted net EPS for FY2025 to fall between $2.86 - $3.16, or non-diluted $3.45 - $3.75, excluding $0.59 per diluted share related to restructuring and other costs.
For the first quarter alone, HP saw diluted net EPS of $0.74 on predictions of $0.70 - $0.76, and diluted net EPS of $0.59 on predictions of $0.57 - $0.63.
Q1 2025 saw a significant year-on-year fall in the number of shares repurchased by HP, from 16.7m to just 2.7m, though dividends remained stable at $273m, down from $275m.
Factored into this outlook were the US’ ongoing tariff increases on China. HP said it had made significant progress in diversifying its supply chain, expecting by the end of 2025 to have over 90% of its North American products built outside of China – though China will remain “an important manufacturing hub for the rest of the world”, the company noted.
“Other substantial tariffs on imports to the United States from certain countries and regions, including Canada, Mexico and the European Union, have been proposed and we are focused on continuing to evaluate and implement further mitigating actions, including potential supply chain resiliency movements, cost and pricing measures, if needed, as the tariff environment evolves.”
HP has scaled up the amount of inventory it holds up to $8.4bn, up nine days to 72 days’ worth of stock.
It generated $70m of free cash flow in the first quarter.
