{"id":246471,"date":"2018-05-23T07:21:29","date_gmt":"2018-05-23T05:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=246471"},"modified":"2019-02-11T10:51:11","modified_gmt":"2019-02-11T08:51:11","slug":"hp-enterprise-outlook-beats-estimates-buoyed-by-software-push","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/enterprise\/246471\/hp-enterprise-outlook-beats-estimates-buoyed-by-software-push\/","title":{"rendered":"HP Enterprise outlook beats estimates, buoyed by software push"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co gave a forecast for the current quarter that topped some Wall Street estimates, signaling that it\u2019s benefiting from recent cost cuts and a push into software and computer services aimed at lessening its dependence on hardware.<\/p>\n

Profit excluding certain costs will be 35 cents to 39 cents a share in the fiscal third quarter, the Palo Alto, California-based company said in a statement Tuesday. Analysts had projected 36 cents on average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Second-quarter revenue and profit also exceeded analysts\u2019 average projections, and HPE shares gained in extended trading following the report.<\/p>\n

HPE chief executive officer Antonio Neri has sought to diversify the hardware maker from the servers and storage solutions that generate most of its revenue. He\u2019s tried to reshape the company into a hybrid-cloud and networking player by developing offerings for the internet-of-things and boosting its software products.<\/p>\n

HPE agreed to buy networking firm Cape Networks in March to boost its networking arm against Cisco Systems Inc., VMware Inc. and Dell Technologies Inc. It also bought software firm Plexxi this month and cloud IT consulting firm RedPixie in April. The strategy is to offer a more holistic suite of offerings to its corporate clients, boost profit margins amid rising hardware memory costs and compete against cloud companies Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp., which offer a broad array of services over the internet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was the architect of HPE Next,\u201d Neri said in an interview, referring to the company\u2019s program to cut costs. \u201cNow it\u2019s paying off on multiple fronts. The market seems to be better. In the last three months, I and the team went on acquiring things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those acquisitions have helped to boost sales, but Neri said growth rates will \u201cmodulate\u201d later this year on tough comparisons.<\/p>\n

HPE shares were up slightly following the report and forecast. The stock, which has gained 20% in the past year, had closed at $17.41 in regular New York trading.<\/p>\n

In the second quarter, which ended April 30, revenue rose 9.7% to $7.47 billion, from $6.81 billion a year earlier. Analysts had projected $7.4 billion. Profit, excluding some items, was 34 cents a share, exceeding analysts\u2019 estimates of 31 cents. Net income in the recent period was $778 million, or 49 cents.<\/p>\n

Neri said HPE had an easier time passing on higher component costs for its servers and data-storage to customers, by raising prices by a few percentage points. That left the company\u2019s Hybrid IT division, which consists of the storage and server businesses, with an operating profit margin of 10.3% in the latest period, up from 9.6% in the previous quarter.<\/p>\n

Rivals including Dell used to price their offerings more aggressively, forcing HPE to sacrifice profit margins by not passing all component costs on to customers. But Dell has to spend money paying interest on its massive debt from a leveraged buyout, so it can\u2019t afford such a competitive pricing strategy anymore, Neri said.<\/p>\n

A Dell spokeswoman pointed to recent remarks from executive Jeff Clarke that Dell has the largest market share in servers and storage and expects to increase its lead this year.<\/p>\n

HPE\u2019s Hybrid IT division generated sales of $6.02 billion, an increase of 6.8% from the same period a year earlier. HPE has sought to offer higher-end hardware products, including so-called hyperconverged systems that include server, storage and networking capabilities in one box. Plexxi\u2019s software will help HPE compete against offerings from Dell and Nutanix Inc.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s Intelligent Edge division — usually one of its fastest-growing units — posted revenue growth of 17% in the second quarter, with sales totaling $710 million. HPE has tried to nurture the division by building out its offerings with acquisitions, such as Cape Networks, meant to boost HPE\u2019s artificial intelligence capabilities.<\/p>\n

HPE\u2019s transition to networking and higher-end servers has put the company in \u201cbetter markets,\u201d and it\u2019s been helped by stronger customer demand, Chief Financial Officer Tim Stonesifer said on a conference call with analysts.<\/p>\n

The April period was the first full quarter under Neri, who has doubled down on the cost-cutting program installed under his predecessor, Meg Whitman. HPE is going ahead with plans to leave its traditional home in the heart of pricey Silicon Valley \u2013 and will now move to the northern side of San Jose. HPE had earlier planned to move into the offices of a company it acquired, Aruba Networks, in Santa Clara.<\/p>\n

In February, HPE said it would return $7 billion to shareholders through the 2019 fiscal year in share repurchases and a 50% increase to its dividend beginning in the fiscal third quarter.<\/p>\n

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Read: HP\u2019s sales top estimates on strong computer demand<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co gave a forecast for the current quarter that topped some Wall Street estimates, signaling that it\u2019s benefiting from recent cost cuts and a push into software and computer services aimed at lessening its dependence on hardware.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":195770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13700],"tags":[273],"class_list":["post-246471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-enterprise","tag-hewlett-packard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246471"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":246477,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246471\/revisions\/246477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}