Hewlett-Packard held its second quarter earnings call today and while the numbers were strong, the company did admit that its consumer PC sales were weak and the outlook is not expected to get better anytime soon.
Does it come as any surprise that one of the major computer makers in the world is reporting feeble PC sales? The most recent projections of tablet sales comes from research firm Jeffries, which says that 70 million slates will be sold this year. That business has to come from somewhere and HP said in its earnings call that consumer PC sales fell 23%. Are HP’s results a sign that the tablet revolution is truly upon us?
Jeffries says that 45 million iPads will sell this year followed by seven million of the various Samsung Galaxy Tabs and the rest filled out by the remaining Android/BlackBerry PlayBook/HP TouchPad crowds.
The longer HP waits to put something on the market, the more it is hurting itself. Jeffries predicts that two million TouchPads will sell this year worldwide, an optimistic forecast for a tablet that still has the ambiguous launch date of “this summer” attached to it. The PlayBook, which launched on April 19, is forecasted to only sell a million units even with a good head start on the TouchPad.
A Sign Of Things To Come?
This has less to do with HP’s earnings and more to do with where the Web is headed. As one of the largest PC makers in the world, HP’s results are a sign for the industry. Its commercial PC sales were up 13% and, as such, HP will focus more on its services to enterprise sector business vertical while retooling the consumer side.
Where does this point? Basically, in the PC world, all roads lead to Redmond. Microsoft is losing its steam with consumers who are finding Mac laptops and desktops (and maybe Chromebooks soon?) more desirable. Or they are simply buying iPads as opposed to a new computer. Windows is still desirable in the enterprise sector and Microsoft has been doing some fascinating things recently for enterprise (Azure, Lync, Microsoft 365, etc.).
To its credit, HP saw the writing on the wall last year. Mobile is taking over the industry and as such it swooped in and bought Palm and WebOS. The TouchPad has potential to be a great tablet and a lot of consumers swear by Palm, going back to the days of their original PDA devices. HP will port WebOS over to its PCs as well and have it live alongside Windows with the first iterations probably coming by the holiday season.
