The earnings report of the company disappointed investors, as the revenue fell on Q2 for 2019 compared to the same period of the previous year.
HPE reported net revenue of $7.2 billion for the second quarter, which measures a 4% drop from the $7.5 billion for the same quarter of 2018. However, the cash flow from operations measured a significant improvement on the year-to-year basis, as it rose with almost 300% from $ 247 million in 2018 to $987 million in 2019.
As a result, the earnings per share rose from $0.32 to $0.42, which was sufficient to offset some of the negative impacts of the worse-off revenue data. The company attributed the losses in the earnings to 'one-time, non-cash adjustments related to U.S. tax reform in the prior-year period', which also softened the negative impact. Antonio Neri, President and CEO of HPE, had commented on the report:
“In Q2 we demonstrated traction in critical areas for our customers that delivered strong margin improvement, EPS above our outlook and solid cash flow.[…] I remain confident that our edge-to-core strategy backed by the important investments we’ve been making will generate positive shareholder returns in the near and longer term” [source]
Following the release of the report, the shares of the company opened yesterday with a 0.19 cents gap and finished the trading session with a total of 2.65% decrease at 14.32.