Shares of Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ) slumped 12.96% on Wednesday to touch a nine-year low after Chief Executive, Meg Whitman cautioned investors that earnings could witness a sharp slide in the fiscal 2013 while sales in all units, except the software division are expected to shrink.
Hewlett-Packard, which is going through a restructuring phase, with focus on transforming itself from hardware industry powerhouse into an enterprise computing corporation, raised investors hope when Whitman was roped in as a new Chief Executive, last year in order to turnaround HP’s flagging businesses. Nevertheless, it seems that investors will have to wait little longer before Hewlett-Packard starts showing some tangible results. According to Whitman, company’s upturn would only start to become clearly discernible by fiscal 2014.
Analysts say that HP is struggling to recover its lost ground as it failed to win back investors trust with its existing strategies. Rising competition in the PC business as well as users preference for smartphones over traditional desktops has dented Hewlett-Packards margins.
While lack of innovation affected HP’s business, its credibility was also hit by massive internal organizational changes in management, which involved large-scale layoffs.
Commenting over Whitman’s remarks, Shaw Wu, an analyst with Sterne Agee, said to Reuters, “I was surprised that nothing new was really said in terms of strategy, and the problem here is there is lack of investor confidence in the current strategy.”
For Whitman, the core of HP’s problem lies in unprecedented changes in the executive level, seen during past few years. Addressing investor conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, the Chief Executive said, “The single biggest challenge facing Hewlett-Packard has been changes in CEOs and executive leadership, which has caused multiple inconsistent strategic choices, and frankly some significant executional miscues.” Whitman added that too many changes at the top management is the reason behind HP taking a longer time to turnaround.
Since 2010, HPQ has lost over two-thirds its value. In 2010, HP’s market capitalization peaked at $104.5 billion; nevertheless, amid leadership issues and flagging demand for personal computers, company’s market value today is around $30 billion.
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