HP Inc. is closing in on Lenovo as the global leader in PC sales. But it’s a tough, evolving market, as HP Inc. CEO Dion Weisler explained in a conference call to discuss his company’s latest earnings on Tuesday.
“So I would say that the PC market is operating as we expected it too, I still think there is uncertainty in the market, but market as a whole hasn’t returned to growth,” Weisler said in a response to a question about the state of the industry.
“At the beginning of the year, we anticipated that – we expected the declines would moderate through the course of 2016 and they did and we were able to adjust to that market, I think much more quickly than many of our competitors. As a benefit of being a separated company the speed, flexibility, focus of the organization was able to react to these market conditions and as a result of that, we’ve performed significantly better than the market and taken a solid premium to the market.”
Looking ahead, he sees lines continuing to blur between device types.
“I think longer-term, the business will continue to evolve and develop as a very large continuum of devices everything from a smartphone little way up to workstations, some of that market we participate in, not all of that market, but the lines are blurring between the different categories within that spectrum and indeed categories are being created in the X3, Elite X3 is a great example of a device that bridges from sort of a fab level life through to a PC and a laptop,” he explained.
“So I would characterize it the market is changing, we’re ahead of that curve, we’re skating towards where we believe the puck is going and investing in the heat of the market that we find particularly attractive. I think the team did a great job in our gaming platform, in the premium segment, in commercial mobility, whether it would be X2 or X3. And we’re unlocking parts of the market that we are still attracted by.”
Lenovo also has made high-performance computing a priority and has embraced hybrid devices such as its Yoga in order to try to meet changing customer demands.
But there’s more to the market than just machine sales, Weisler pointed out, according to a transcript of the call providing by financial news site SeekingAlpha.
“Let’s remember it’s a $320 billion TAM [total addressable market] and about half of that – things like services, displays, accessories that we have low market share and we’re looking to expand our business and the team is expanding our business there,” Weisler said.
“So we still think there is a great opportunity within the Personal Systems environment, it’s a changing market landscape. It has improved from the beginning of last year and we don’t broadly disagree with the outlook from the analyst, but I think what you can expect us to do is continue to deliver ahead of the market.”
