Computer multinational Hewlett Packard has insisted that a profit warning will not threaten the jobs of its 1,500-strong workforce in Ireland.
Plans to increase the workforce to 3,000 by the year 2001 are also "well on track", the general manager of Hewlett-Packard Ireland, Ms Elma Murphy, said yesterday.
The profit warning, issued on Wednesday by the world's third largest computer supplier, said aggressive pricing in the PC market, continued weakness in Asia and rising operating expenses would contribute to earnings "well short" of expectations for its fiscal second quarter.
Hewlett Packard has revised its earnings per share for the period to April 30th last, to about 65 cents, a 13 per cent drop from the same period last year, when it reported net earnings of $784 million.
The preliminary estimate is below the average 77 cents per share Wall Street analysts had expected the group to earn. The bulk of its operation here is centred on the production of inkjet cartridges for printers at its manufacturing facility in Leixlip, Co Kildare. A further 100 staff work in its sales and marketing division for Ireland at its headquarters in Blackrock, Co Dublin.
Ms Murphy told The Irish Times: "I can confirm the sales division and the manufacturing facility employment plans will be unaffected.
"The inkjet manufacturing business we run here is performing extremely well and will not be impacted by difficulties in the personal computer (PC) sector." The chairman of Hewlett Packard, Mr Lewis Platt, said in a statement: "While we did achieve good revenue and order growth this quarter, we are disappointed that our early calculations show earnings per share coming in well short of expectations."
Although Hewlett Packard provided analysts with limited details of the quarter's results, it said other units of the company performed well, including the printer business which was described as doing "very well". According to Ms Murphy, the Irish figures for the company are up on the same quarter last year and, as PC volume sales continue to increase, there will be no knock-on affect from the PC to the printer business.
The latest announcement is another blow to the computer industry after the world's largest microchip manufacturer, Intel, posted first-quarter revenues and earnings in April that were 7.8 per cent down on expectations.
Hewlett Packard, long considered a blue-chip computer company, was widely considered more than capable of weathering current difficulties in the PC market. This was reflected in a 34 per cent jump in its stock price in the last month.
Mr Stephen Pavlovich, manager of investor relations, told analysts: "We're not going to be out of the woods in the third (fiscal) quarter as far as the PC business goes."
The current difficulties stem from an all-out price war between the leading PC makers. HP also said it had been unsuccessful in controlling year-on-year operating expenses, which grew 18 per cent in the quarter, faster than revenues.
