CANBERRA: The Australian operation of the formerly merged Hewlett Packard company has revealed that its local revenues sank by a whopping $271.5 million in 2015, with most of the decline attributable to its technology products business, as opposed to the IT services business it is splitting off into a separate company.
On 1 November, HP split its operations into two, with its technology products business (especially personal computers and printers) to form the basis of one new company, HP Inc, and its IT services business to form a second company, Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
However, for the year to 31 October last year, HP was still one large operation, and its Australian operations reported their financial results together in a filing to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission this week.
The results show bad news for HP Inc, especially. Over the year to 31 October, HP made $271.5 million less revenue than it did in the previous 12 months. The main issue was the sale of goods (generally technology products), which sank from $2.15 billion in 2014 to $1.85 billion in 2015.
HP’s services business was relatively stable over that period, only sinking about $5 million to $1.395 billion in 2015. Despite the steady performance of its IT services business, the HPE side of the former group has recently been conducting substantial layoff operations in Australia, suggesting that the red ink may not be quarantined to its products business.
Delimiter has recently revealed that HPE is in the throes of cutting several hundred staff from its South Australian operation, in a region in which it had, even as recently as November last year, stated that it was rapidly expanding.
HP’s financial results for last year reveal the company had some 4,871 Australian staff as at 31 October. It is not clear what the new mix of staff between HP Inc. and HPE is in Australia.
The financial results also revealed that HP made a paper loss of some $228 million in its 2015 financial year, although it is not clear whether this represents a real-world loss. It is common for multinational technology vendors such as HP to shift their internal finances around to avoid paying substantial taxes in satellite countries such as Australia.
