The technology giant Hewlett Packard (HP) has reported a sharp fall in quarterly sales.
The company, which employs about 4,000 people in Ireland, said sales fell 8% in the three months to the end of June to $27.2 billion.
The company made a profit of $1.4 billion.
However, that figure flatters HP as last year’s results were hit by a number of write downs from failed investments that cost the company nearly $9 billion.
The drop in sales was mainly due to falling sales of PCs, laptops and printers. The company said sales of desktop computers dropped 9% while sales of notebooks plunged 14%.
HP is attempting to make up for the poor performance of its consumer products by focusing on managing companies' IT for them and by building big technology equipment like servers.
The company has a five year turnaround plan but even that has fallen off track, according to stock market analysts.
However, the company's chief executive, Meg Whitman, defended its performance last night on a conference call with shareholders.
“So listen, I'm very confident that our turnaround is working. As you would expect in any turnaround, some businesses are performing better than you would think and some are somewhat performing not as well as you would hope. I feel very confident in our turnaround. This is a journey. We have achieved a lot of milestones along the way and I am confident we're on the right track,” she said.
Shares in HP fell about 2% before the financial results were released yesterday and are expected to drop in trading on the New York stock exchange later today.
