The manufacturer recorded total sales of $14.7bn (£11.1bn) for the three-month period to 31 January 2019, up by 1.3% year-on-year but down by 4.3% on the previous quarter.
Revenue in the firm’s printing division was down by 0.4% from $5.08bn to $5.06bn in Q1 and was down by 4.6% on the previous quarter.
Commercial hardware sales grew by 5.1% year-on-year and consumer hardware was up by 2.6% but sales of supplies, the largest part of the division by revenue, fell by 2.5%, from $3.35bn to $3.27bn.
HP’s personal systems division, which comprises workstations, notebooks and desktops, saw net revenue climb by 2.3% year-on-year in Q1, from $9.44bn to $9.66bn.
The company’s Q1 net earnings fell from $1.94bn, or $1.17 per share, a year ago, to $803m, or 52 cents per share.
Profits in the Printing segment were up by 2.8% year-on-year, from $799m to $821m, while profits in Personal Systems increased by 22.4%, from $335m a year ago to $410m. The company’s overall profits were down by 0.6% year-on-year in Q1, from $905m a year ago to $900m.
In a webcast held following the publication of the results late on Wednesday (27 February), HP Inc president and chief executive Dion Weisler said: “In Q1 we once again delivered top and bottom-line growth.
“We continued to demonstrate our ability to deliver on our EPS, generate free cash flow and we remained focused on positioning the company to long-term sustainable growth.
“In print, while we have made progress against our strategy growing hardware revenue, share and operating profit dollars, our supplies performance did not meet our expectations this quarter.”
Weisler said supplies declined by 9% in the EMEA region, due to factors that included more commercial customers purchasing supplies online.
“While we have leading share online, it’s at a lower percentage than our share with traditional commercial resellers and in-store retailers.
“In addition, as macro uncertainty has increased we have seen further price sensitivity among customers, pressuring both our share and our supplies pricing.”
HP Inc’s share price fell by around 16% from $23.83 to $20.05 when trading opened yesterday. It stood at $19.73 at the close of trading.
