...February 26, 2021 NEW YORK (S&P Global Ratings) Feb. 26, 2021--Palo Alto, Calif.-based personal computing and print technologies company HP Inc.'s (###/Stable/A-2) first-quarter earnings highlight continued strong demand for PCs and consumer printer hardware, while commercial demand remained soft. Personal systems revenues increased 6.4% and printing increased 7.1% year over year (constant-currency basis). Segment profitability also improved, driven by favorable pricing, expanding sequentially to 11.1% from 8% in the prior quarter. HP continues to optimize costs and expects to achieve $1.2 billion of gross cost cuts by 2023, though investments to improve growth may offset savings. While HP expects the PC market to expand in 2021, our base case is for global PC units to be flat, with stronger growth in the first half, then moderating in the second half as work-from-home and distance-learning notebook demand normalizes. We expect broader enterprise demand for printer hardware to be challenged,...
