Antonio Neri
Anjali Sundaram | CNBC
Hewlett Packard Enterprise shares dropped about 4% in extended trading on Monday after the company reported lower-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter revenue.
Here are the key numbers:
- Earnings: Excluding certain items, 49 cents per share, vs. 46 cents per share as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.
- Revenue: $7.22 billion, vs. $7.40 billion as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.
HPE’s revenue fell 9% from a year earlier in the quarter, which ended on Oct. 31, according to a statement. Sales for the full fiscal year came in at $29.14 billion, down about 42% from three years ago, before it divested certain properties to companies like DXC and Micro Focus.
HPE’s biggest segment, Hybrid IT, recorded an 11% drop in revenue at $5.67 billion for the quarter, trailing the $5.74 billion FactSet consensus estimate. The unit includes servers, storage and networking equipment for businesses’ data centers. Within Hybrid IT, compute revenue, which includes sales of servers and accounted for 45% of HPE’s total revenue, fell 13%.
The company continues to see longer sales cycles, particularly for bigger deals, HPE CEO Antonio Neri told CNBC in an interview on Monday. Neri cited tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty, as well as “the deflationary side of the commodities,” in his comments on a conference call with analysts.
In the fiscal first quarter, HPE is projecting 42 cents to 46 cents in earnings per share, excluding certain items. Analysts polled by Refinitiv had expected earnings of 42 cents.
For the 2020 fiscal year, HPE’s outlook is for $1.78 to $1.94 in earnings per share, compared to the $1.85 average estimate, according to Refinitiv.
During its most recent quarter, HPE announced the acquisition of data start-up MapR’s business assets and closed the $1.3 billion acquisition of supercomputing company Cray.
HPE shares have climbed 32% this year, while the S&P 500 has gained 25%.
— CNBC’s Josh Lipton contributed to this report.
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