HP's Q4 Profit QuadruplesHP's Q4 Profit Quadruples

Hewlett-Packard announced on Thursday afternoon that profits more than quadrupled for its fourth fiscal quarter.

The company brought in $1.7 billion in profit, according to HP chairman and CEO Mark Hurd. During the same quarter in 2005, HP brought in $400 million in profit.

The company "delivered its best quarter in a number of years," Hurd told a news conference.

"We closed a strong year with solid revenue growth, margin expansion across our key businesses and excellent cash flow from operations," said Hurd. "We are well on our way to building a more competitive HP that creates further value for our shareholders."

HP showed net revenue of $24.6 billion in Q4, he said. The fourth quarter, which ended Oct. 31, represents 7 percent growth compared to the same quarter last year, or 6 percent growth when the numbers are adjusted for the effects of currency. GAAP operating profit came in at $1.9 billion and the GAAP diluted earnings per share (EPS) was $0.60 per share, up from $0.14 in the fourth quarter of 2005. Non-GAAP operating profit was $2.2 billion, with non-GAAP diluted EPS of $0.68, up from $0.51 in the prior year period.

HP expects revenue for the first quarter of 2007 to come in between $24.1 billion and $24.3 billion, Hurd said. Full year revenue for 2007 will be approximately $97 billion.

Rival Dell had been scheduled to release its third-quarter financial results, as well on Thursday, but delayed the announcement. Citing the "complexity" of the escalating SEC investigation into its accounting practices, a notice on the company's Web site said earnings would be released by the end of the month.

At HP this past August, the company reported a 5 percent year-over-year revenue increase in its third fiscal quarter.

For this quarter, HP reported that revenue grew 10 percent to $7.8 billion in the personal systems group when compared with the same period last year. For notebooks, revenue grew 24 percent year over year while desktop revenue was flat. The commercial client group's revenue grew 4 percent, while the consumer client group saw a 19 percent revenue increase.

In the Imaging and Printing Group, revenue grew 7 percent year-over-year to $7.3 billion. HP also reported that Enterprise Storage and Servers took in $4.7 billion in revenue, that's up 4 percent over the fourth quarter in 2005. On a year-over-year basis, industry-standard server revenue increased 9 percent, with blade revenue up 38 percent.