Hewlett-Packard executives are giving an optimistic outlook for the upcoming year.
At HP’s annual meeting with securities analysts Sept. 24, Chairman and CEO Mark Hurd touted the company’s broad portfolio of products and its global presence as key drivers that will enable HP to expand its various businesses and extend its reach into new markets as the economy worldwide begins to recover from the recession.
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“We expect the IT industry to return to growth in 2010 and believe that HP will outpace the market,” Hurd said in a statement. “Our broad product and services portfolio and global scale give HP a clear competitive advantage. As a result, we see tremendous opportunity to grow our business and improve earnings while delivering value to our customers.”
Key areas of focus will be the continued convergence of devices and infrastructure as well as the shift in printing from analog to digital, according to HP.
Cathie Lesjak, HP’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, said for fiscal 2010-which begins in November-HP expects to generate revenue of $117 billion to $118 billion, in line with analyst estimates.
Brian Alexander, an analyst with Raymond James & Associates, said HP could do well next year, when businesses are expected to being loosening their IT budgets.
“Throughout the day, emphasis was placed on HP’s scale advantages, portfolio breadth and innovation as key growth drivers,” Alexander said in a report. “Furthermore, HP management noted that the company is only reaching $850 billion of an addressable $1.3 trillion market, and is focused on closing this sales coverage gap.”
He said HP is in good position to take advantage of the expected higher IT spending in 2010, particularly in enterprise servers and storage.