Sluggish PC, ink sales hurt HP

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Hewlett-Packard Co.’s 19 percent drop in quarterly profit shows that the company still relies heavily on printer ink and the troubled personal computer market, despite the aggressive transformation it’s undertaking to branch out and encroach more on rival IBM Corp.’s turf.

IBM, which ditched its PC division as part of a major facelift over the past 15 years, now makes most of its money from software and services.

With its $13.9 billion acquisition last year of technology services company Electronic Data Systems, HP now, too, is heavily invested in services — they are its biggest revenue and profit generator.

But HP’s latest quarterly numbers, reported Tuesday after the market closed, show the companies are still very different.

HP’s profit dropped in large part due to ongoing weakness in sales of PCs and printer ink — two areas IBM isn’t in. Still, HP edged past Wall Street’s profit and sales forecasts — something CEO Mark Hurd has done most quarters in his 4 1‚Ñ2 years at HP’s helm.