HP Releases 2013 Earnings, Stock up 15%

HP released its first quarter earnings this afternoon after the stock market closed, and surprisingly, the news was actually not that bad.

 The company had net income of $1.2 billion for the first quarter of 2013, compared to $1.5 billion in the same quarter a year ago, as revenue fell to $28.4 billion. That translates to $0.82 per share, which is down 11 percent from 2012, but is well above HP’s previously-provided guidance of $0.68 to $0.71 per share.

It’s better than HP’s outlook in November of 2012, when the company had just reported bad numbers and came clean on a bad acquisition. And it’s much better than the second quarter of 2012, when HP faced its biggest-ever quarterly loss.

 CEO Meg Whitman was cautiously optimistic about the results:

“We beat our non-GAAP diluted EPS outlook for the quarter by $0.11 per share, driven by improved execution, improvement in our channel and go-to-market efforts and the impact of the restructuring program we announced in May 2012,” Whitman said in a statement. “While there’s still a lot of work to do to generate the kind of growth we want to see, our turnaround is starting to gain traction as a result of the actions we took in 2012 to lay the foundation for HP’s future.”

HP shares are up with the news, jumping to $18.50 in after-hours trading:

Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/21/hp-releases-not-as-bad-as-expected-q1-2013-earnings-stock-shoots-up-17/#UyZmctbyPEdqRdkS.99

 One particularly good bit of news: cash flow from operations was up 115 percent from Q1 2012, to $2.6 billion. In addition, HP reduced its overall debt by more than $1 billion — for the fourth consecutive quarter.

If the company continues improve like this, we might even have to say HP is back sometime soon.