HP not yet Seeing Hoped-For Windows 10 ‘Stimulation of Demand,’ CEO Says

It's “incumbent” upon HP Inc. as the “global commercial PC leader” to “reinvent what the category is capable of,” such as with the introduction this week at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona of the HP Elite x3 all-in-one device, CEO Dion Weisler said on a Wednesday earnings call. The Windows 10-based HP Elite x3 is a “revolutionary category-creating mobile solution that brings together mobility and computing in a truly meaningful way,” Weisler said. It “unites phablet, laptop and desktop experiences into a single device,” he said. For 2015, “the overall PC market was slower to recover than expected, but we continued to execute, manage our channel inventory and improve product mix,” he said. HP expected “tough market conditions” in the PC business for 2015, “and we expect it for several quarters ahead,” Weisler said in Q&A. “We broadly agree” with industry projections that PC unit sales will suffer “mid-single-digit” declines in 2016, he said. “However, we see in the back half of this year that revenue will begin to improve as the technology improves and as channel inventory works its way out of the system.” HP thinks “the PC lines are being redrawn at the moment,” he said. “And our goal, as it has been consistently for the past three years, is to gain profitable share.” HP will chose “where to play, where not to play,” he said. “We continue to drive innovation into the system, and we're not after share for share's sake.” Though Windows 10 is “a tremendous operating system platform,” HP has “not yet seen the anticipated Windows 10 stimulation of demand that we would have hoped for, and we're carefully monitoring any sort of price developments that could further weaken demand,” he said. “So we're operating in still a large market. The big guys are getting bigger, and we think there is opportunity in that landscape.” Microsoft representatives didn’t comment Thursday on Weisler's Windows 10 remarks.