...August 27, 2021 NEW YORK (S&P Global Ratings) Aug. 27, 2021--Palo Alto, Calif.-based personal computing and print technologies company HP Inc.'s (###/Stable/A-2) fiscal third-quarter (ended July 31, 2021) earnings highlight persistent supply chain and logistics challenges, constraining growth and indicating some share loss to tier 1 vendors Lenovo Group Ltd. and Dell Inc. While overall demand was strong, it was flat year over year for HP's total PC units. HP's outsource model will likely weigh on performance in coming quarters as the company optimizes its supply chain. Cost management is helping strong profits, though margins are driven by other temporary factors in the near term. We continue to expect strong global PC unit growth in 2021 at about 14%, likely moderating in 2022. IDC Corp. recently revised its PC growth forecast to 14.2% in 2021 from 18%. While we are cautious about 2022, rising backlog growth amid product shortages and a return to the office spurring corporate demand could...
