HP publishes financial results for Q2 2020 – the largest losses are recorded in the printing department

Over the past few weeks, we’ve published a number of articles presenting the financial reports of leading companies from the 3D printing industry. Apart from individual cases, they were bad – companies were losing money, sales were falling, orders were decreasing… Today, for a change, we will look at one of the largest technology corporations in the world – HP Inc., which has been gradually building its position on the 3D printing market for several years. It turns out that regardless of the scale of business, activities in the area of ​​additive technologies are associated with the same problems and challenges…

HP’s revenues are reported in two main departments: Personal Systems and Printing. Personal Systems covers revenues from the segments of notebooks, desktops and workstations, while Printing includes sales of products for the printing industry (consumables as well as consumer and commercial equipment). The second department also records revenues from 3D printing.

In the second quarter of 2020, HP generated net revenues of USD 12.5 billion. This result is 11.2% lower compared to the same period last year when the company’s revenues amounted to USD 14 billion. In the computer division, notebooks generated the highest revenues in the form of USD 5.1 billion, maintaining practically the same level as a year ago (-0.31%). In total, the Personal Systems department recorded a revenue loss of -6.82% year-on-year, largely due to much lower sales of workstations (-22.85%).

In the printing systems department, total revenues in the second quarter of 2020 amounted to USD 4.2 billion, compared to USD 5.1 billion in the second quarter of 2019, which is a decrease of 19%. The largest decrease of -31.5% was recorded in the area of ​​commercial equipment, which also includes the sale of 3D printing systems. HP did not disclose exactly how much 3D printers had a share in this result, but the lack of this information is also information – if there were any increases here, the Palo Alto concern would certainly write about it.

Enrique Lores, president and CEO of HP, attributes the decline in COVID-19 pandemic revenue:

Turning to our results, there is no doubt that COVID-19 is impacting our business. While some areas performed very well as people shifted to work from home, others suffered and we faced supply chain disruptions.

At the same time, Lores maintains his faith in 3D printing, emphasizing its advantages, which were particularly demonstrated during the pandemic:

This pandemic has shown the benefits of 3D printing, specifically speed, agility, and localized production. This has led to deeper more strategic engagement with customers as they evaluate their supply chain and consider more distributed manufacturing models.