Q3 2023 HP Inc Earnings Call

Speaker 1: Good day, everyone, and welcome to the third quarter 2023 HP Ink Earnings Conference call. My name is Sarah, and I will be your conference moderator for today's call. At this time, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. We will be facilitating a question-and-answer session towards the end of the conference.

Should you need assistance during the call, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the call over to Arit Kinan Nahun, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Arit Kinan Nahun, Head of Investor Relations.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to HP's third quarter 2023 earnings conference call.

With me today are Enrique Lores, HP's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Marie Meyers, HP's Chief Financial Officer.

Before handing the call over to Enrique, let me remind you that this call is a webcast and a replay will be available on our website shortly after the call for approximately one year. We posted the earnings release and accompanying slide presentation on our investor relations web page at investor.hp.com. As always, elements of this presentation are forward looking and are based on our best view of the world and our businesses as we see them today.

For more detailed information, please see disclaimers in the earnings materials relating to forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions.

For discussion of some of these risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, please refer to HP's SEC reports, including our most recent Form 10-K . HP assumes no obligation and does not intend to update any such forward-looking statements. We also note that the financial information discussed on this call reflects estimates based on information available now and could differ materially from the amounts ultimately reported in HP's SEC filings.

During this webcast, unless otherwise specifically noted, all comparisons are EOVE comparisons with the corresponding year-ago period.

In addition, unless otherwise noted, references to HPE Channel Inventory refer to Tier 1 Channel Inventory. For financial information that has been expressed on a non-GAAP basis, we've included reconciliations to the comparable GAAP information.

Please refer to the tables and slide presentation accompanying today's earnings release for those reconciliations.

With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to Enrique.

Thank you, Orit, and thank you, everyone, for joining the call today.

When we spoke last quarter, we said that our second half performance could be stronger than the first half. We outlined a clear plan to drive sequential improvement. And this is exactly what we delivered in Q3. We grew med revenue, non-GAAP operating profit, non-GAAP EPS, and free cash flow quarter over quarter in a tough market environment. And our future ready plan is enabling continued progress against our long-term growth priorities while driving structural cost savings. Today, I'm going to spend a few minutes recapping Q3.

I will then talk about the market dynamics we see in each of our business units. And I will close by sharing my thoughts on the external environment heading into Q4 before handing the call to Marie.

Starting with our results, net revenue was $13.2 billion.

That's down 10% year over year or 7% in currency. Even so, third quarter net revenue was up 2% sequentially despite macro headwinds continuing to impact demand across the industry.

We also made good progress in our key growth areas.

While these businesses are not immune to covered market challenges, collectively they deliver solid sequential growth in the quarter.

This reflects the power of the portfolio we are building to meet a wider range of customer needs.

And we are continuing to invest in these areas to strengthen our position and accelerate our momentum.

We remain on track to deliver at least 40% of our three-year structural cost savings target by the end of this fiscal year.

And I want to thank all of our teams for driving discipline, execution, and cost management across the business.

Because of their work, we delivered non-GAAP EPS of 86N.

This is at the midpoint of our previously provided guidance and was up 9% sequentially.

As we reduce our structural costs, it is enabling sustained investment and innovation aligned with our long-term growth priorities.

At SIGGRAPH, we launched our new Z4 RAC workstation for data scientists, content creators, and engineers.

With the option of our HP Anywhere Remote Computing Software, users can access the high-performance power of the Z4 from any device.

At Computex, we introduced our next-gen HyperX Cloud 3 gaming headset which creates immersive audio experiences for gaming.

We unveiled our new Poly Studio Video Solution for hybrid meeting rooms. It runs on AI-driven software that automatically detects and frames participants to enable a better experience between people in the room and colleagues connecting remotely.

And we launched HP Site Print, an innovative robotic solution that empowers workers to print the most complex construction site layouts with pinpoint accuracy while achieving 10 times their productivity. I am even more excited about the progress we are making with our silicon and software partners to co-engineer new platforms that run generative AI at the edge.

As I mentioned last quarter, this is a massive opportunity for PC Reinvention. Being able to run AI applications locally enables lower latency as well as more robust security and privacy protection. I am very pleased with the pipeline of innovation our teams are building and we view this as a significant driver of PC Refresh in 2024 and beyond. We will be unveiling a wide range of new products and services at our first ever HP Imagine event on October 6.

This is a moment for us to showcase innovation across our portfolio and I invite you all to watch the live stream.

Last quarter, we also released our annual Sustainable Impact Report. It outlines the progress we have made against our climate action.

Human Rights and Digital Equity Goals

We have now reduced our absolute carbon footprint by 18% since 2019.

And we achieved our goal to enable better learning outcomes for 100 million people three years ahead of planning. I hope many of you were able to watch our webcast on these topics earlier this month. This work has a positive impact on our communities and helps us to win business.

Let me now turn to our business unit performance. Starting at the macro level, we continue to navigate an uneven environment, including FX headwinds. From a customer segment perspective, the picture is somewhat mixed. We have seen enterprise spending remain cautious, with the rising cost of capital being a notable factor. The SMB segment is showing resilience, and in consumer we continue to see softness in discretionary spending. Geographically, we see various dynamics playing out in different parts of the world. Most markets are experiencing some weakness, although at different levels. For example, we saw a downturn in the China market, where demand is not even yet backing the lower GDP recovery.

Personal systems revenue was $8.9 billion in the quarter. That's down 11% year over year or 8% in constant currency. So we saw a significant improvement this quarter.

with peers revenue up 9% sequentially. This reflects back-to-school demand as well as higher unit volume resulting in share gains.

Our PS operating margin was strong at 6.6%. Operating profit dollars grew sequentially driven by higher volume, our disciplined cost management and structural cost reduction.

We also gained shares in both commercial and consumer, while still focusing on profitable shares. Year over year, we gained 2.9 share points while retaining our number one position in commercial.

Gaming saw a significant recovery with double digit sequential growth. And Pierce Services, TCB, grew strong double digits sequentially and year over year. Turning to print, revenue was $4.3 billion. That's down 7% year over year or 5% in currency. We continue to see soft demand, particularly in China, as well as aggressive pricing in the consumer print market and delayed enterprise spending in the industrial space. The price revenue was probably flat year over year in constant currency in line with our expectation. We delivered print operating margin of 18.6%. This reflects our disciplined cost management as well the work we are doing to rebalance overall system profitability.

For example, this quarter about 60% of our shaped units were HP plus enabled or profit upfront big tank printers. And Instant Ink once again grew revenue a newer role is year over year.

We also see opportunities to improve our print performance. They are specifically focused on regaining profitable shares and improving our performance in office through step-up execution. And given the competitive environment in home printing, we need to improve our cost structure to maintain long-term profitability. Turning to our industrial business, the graphics and 3D market continue to be impacted by macro environment and delayed ordering cycles.

That said, they remain important parts of our plan to drive long-term growth and value creation and we continue to innovate to strengthen our position.

I also want to acknowledge the continued progress we are making in our workforce services and solutions business. We delivered solid growth in the quarter, both year over year and sequentially.

And we are building a strong funnel as we spend time introducing our newly integrated portfolio of services with customers.

We are very encouraged by the opportunities to grow this business moving forward.

Overall, Q3 was a solid quarter given current market conditions.

Our future ready plan is on track.

We are investing in innovation and making good progress against our long-term growth priorities.

And we are doubling down on execution across every facet of our business.

Which is important, are we expect the market to remain challenging in Q4?

The macro situation is not improving as quickly as anticipated.

And while we expect to deliver another quarter of sequential growth, we are moderating our expectations for Q4 and the full year consistent with the revised market outlook.

This outlook is largely driven by the continued aggressive pricing environment in...

Thank you.

luggage demand in China and enterprise demand up

Notwithstanding the actions we are taking to mitigate these headwinds, we believe it is prudent to lower our outlook based on near-term market reality.

Let me be clear, we will use this moment as an opportunity to double down on the things we can't control.

We have already begun identifying additional opportunities.

to further reduce our cost structure where we believe we can overdeliver on our cost saving target. All right guys, thank you very much.

This is certainly not the first time we have had to adapt to market volatility.

It's something we have been doing consistently over the past few years.

We know how to manage the business or this situation.

And we have a strong track record taking action that protects our profitability and free cash flow, which is what you can continue to expect from us.

And while we clearly have some additional work to do in the near term, we remain confident in our long term trajectory.

We have consistently said that progress won't always be linear.

but we are focused on what we can control and driving discipline execution to unlock value.

We will also continue to execute the capital allocation strategy we have shared previously.

We are committed to returning 100% of free cash flow to shareholders over time unless opportunities with a better return on investment arise.

And as long as our gross leverage ratio remains under two times EBITDA. I'm looking forward to seeing many of you in Palo Alto in October for our Securities Analyst meeting. As many of you know, this was an event we hosted each fall prior to 2020.

We hosted it virtually in 2021, and it will be great to be back together in person.

We will use the meeting to share more detail on the progress we are making against our future Ready Plans, including some of the opportunities we see to accelerate our digital transformation and structural cost reduction. We will also highlight exciting innovation across the HPE portfolio. And we will talk a lot about the significant long-term opportunities we see to deliver long-term sustainable growth and value creation. With that, let me stop here and turn the call over to Marie to discuss our results and outlook in more detail.

Thank you and good afternoon everyone. We delivered positive results in 2003 and continued to build on the progress we made during the first half of the year despite a challenging macro environment. We have increased our non-GAAP operating profit and non-GAAP ETS sequentially over the course of the year in line with our outlook.

In Q3, our personal systems business drove high single digit sequential revenue growth, which in turn helped drive strong free cash flow performance in the quarter. We successfully completed a debt tender exceeding $1.1 billion late in the quarter that reduced our gross leverage ratio as planned.

And our future ready transformation plan is on track to achieve at least 560,000

million dollars in gross annual run rate structural cost savings this year.

While there are pockets of our business,

where we are working to improve our execution, we made good progress during the quarter.

Now let's take a closer look at the details of the quarter.

The net revenue was $13.2 billion in the quarter, down 10% nominally and 7% in constant currency, driven by the declines across each of our regions. In constant currency, America's declined 8%, and the U.S. declined 7%.

EMEA declined 5%, and APJ declined 9%.

driven by weakened demand in China.

Gross margin was 21.4% in the quarter, up 1.7 points year on year, primarily due to lower component and logistics costs in personal systems and favorable mix.

partially offset by currency and competitive pricing across both of our businesses.

non-GAAP operating expenses were $1.7 billion or 12.6 percent of revenue. The increase in operating expenses was driven primarily by the polyacquisition and investments in growth initiatives partially offset by disciplined cost management, including future-ready structural cost savings. non-GAAP operating profit was $1.2 billion, down 15.1 percent. non-GAAP net OIN expense was $143 million, down sequentially due to lower short-term financing activity and up year-on-year primarily due to higher interest expense, driven by an increase in both debt outstanding and interest rates as well as higher factoring expenses. non-GAAP diluted net earnings per share decreased 17 cents or 17 percent to 86 cents with a diluted check-out of approximately 1 billion shares.

Don Gap, deluded net earnings per share, excludes an net expense totaling $93 million, primarily related to restructuring and other charges, amortization of intangibles, acquisition and divestiture related charges and other tax adjustments, offset partially by the debt and non-operating retirement related credit.

As a result, Q3 GAAP diluted net earnings per share was 76 cents.

Now, let's turn to segment performance. In Q3, Postal Systems Revenue was $8.9 billion, down 11% or 8% in constant currency.

Now, let's turn to segment performance. In Q3, postal systems revenue was $8.9 billion, down 11% or 8% in cost of currency. Total units were up 3%.

Sequentially revenue was up 9% and total units were up 21%, with commercial up 17% and consumer up 28%.

Improved sequential demand was driven by seasonal strength with back-to-school demand. We also saw continued commercial enterprise softness driven by cautious spending and delayedchildren made participants.

We improved our overall market share in calendar Q2 on both a year-over-year and sequential basis driven by gains in both commercial and consumer markets.

We continue to see commercial representing approximately 70% of our revenue mix for the quarter.

Our strategy remains focused on driving profitable share growth.

Our channel imagery levels are normalising, however, our estimate is that the industry-wide channel imagery continues to remain elevated.

As a consequence, ASP pressures offset volume growth accounting for year over year revenue decline in personal systems in order.

Drilling into the details.

Consumer revenue with down 12% Commercial was down 11%

Increase competitive and promotional pricing, group ASPs lower, partially offset by contributions from hybrid system revenue and higher unit volumes resulting in share gain. We increased our market share and higher value premium categories, including commercial windows and gaming. Personal systems delivered almost $600 million of operating profit with operating margins of 6.6.

Our margin declined 0.1 points year over year primarily due to increased pricing competition

currency and higher optics due to the POLY acquisition.

This was partially offset by lower costs including commodity costs, structural cost savings, and logistics expenses. In print, our results reflect our continued focus on key initiatives as we navigated the challenges of a softer and increasingly competitive print market.

In Q3, total print revenue was $4.3 billion, down 7% normally, or 5% in constant currency. The decline was driven by soft demand in both consumer and commercial. Market share loss, currency, and lower supplies revenue. Hardware revenue was down $256 million, driven by lower volumes, primarily due to China market softness and aggressive pricing competition as our Japanese competitors have leveraged to their advantage. Total hardware units decreased 19% driven by softer print demand in both home and commercial. Industrial graphics revenue, particularly hardware, remains prescient by persistent soft enterprise demand with the greatest impact seen in Europe . By customer segment, commercial revenue decreased 6% of 5% in constant currency with units down 8%. Consumer revenue decreased 28% or down 26% in constant currency with units down 20%. ASPs for down year over year driven by the promotional and competitive pricing and currency offset partially by a favorable mix in both consumer and commercial.

Supplies revenue was $2.8 billion, declining 2% nominally and roughly flat in constant currency in line with expectations. The decline was driven by demand softness, particularly in China, low usage and a lower install base. This was offset partially by pricing actions earlier in the year and share gains in turn up. But operating profit was approximately $800 million down 12% year on year and operating margin was 18.6%. Operating margin decreased 1.2 points driven by competitive pricing and unfavorable currency partially offset by structural cost savings and favorable mix.

I would also like to note that we recorded accounting adjustments primarily related to a revenue contract in our personal system segment. This has been reflected in our prior quarter compares, which I just covered. It was not material to any of our previously filed financial statements and does not impact our current quarter results. •

We continue to make strong progress on our future ready transformation in Q3, and we expect to deliver at least 40% of our three year gross annual structural run rate savings target of $1.4 billion for FY23.

As I've mentioned previously, we are working on a range of programs which should enable us to achieve and potentially exceed key milestones for reducing costs across our business. Given the dynamic imprint, we are building the plan to accelerate cost reductions in that business. Let me update you on our progress in Q3.

A key pillar of our transformation plan is focused on simplifying our product portfolio, significantly reducing the number of platforms we support to drive agility and operating leverage.

We've made great progress in personal safety.

as the actions we've taken have positively impacted our Q3 operating profit rate performance.

Specifically, we continue to make great progress standardizing our personal systems platforms.

At the end of Q3, we were nearly halfway to our goal of reducing a total number of personal systems platforms by approximately one third by the end of FY24.

In addition, we continue to reduce our commodity complexity decreasing the number of clients use in our personal systems portfolio.

In addition, we continue to look for new opportunities to reduce our cost structure across the organization.

In Q3, for example,

We optimized our media spend by consolidating our marketing programs and expanding our in-housing model further. We expect marketing will continue to deliver additional savings in headcount productivity and cost optimization as we unlock new digital solutions. We are aggressively pressing forward with our AI agenda to reinvent various functions inside the company to accelerate both our products and productivity. We are enhancing our software coding practices to accelerate code development to improve speed, efficiencies, and quality reviews. We are also leveraging our telemetry data to proactively address customer needs and to provide tailored recommendations and solutions to improve their efficiency and productivity.

Shifting to cash flow and capital allocation. Q3 cash flow from operations was solid at $1 billion and free cash flow was approximately $900 million. The cash conversion cycle was minus 31 days in the quarter. This improved two days year over year, primarily due to days of inventory decreasing one day and days payable increasing four days, partially offset by days receivable increasing three days.

The sequential growth in personal systems has improved the overall cash conversion cycle as expected.

The Quential Growth in Personal Systems has improved the overall cash conversion cycle as expected. Looking ahead to Q4.

We expect operational improvements will help drive a sequential increase in free cash flow, including an increase in personal systems revenue and an improvement in working capital. In Q3, we returned approximately $216 million to shareholders by a cash dividend.

In addition, we successfully completed a debt tender during the quarter retiring greater than $1 billion of debt.

Consistent with our outlook, we did not repurchase any shares in the quarter.

Looking forward to Q4, we expect the challenging economic climate and continued demand softness will remain headwinds for our business in the near term.

In particular, keep the following in mind related to our overall financial outlook.

We still expect operating expenses, excluding Polly, will be down year over year for FY 23.

We intend to start managing delusions this quarter as we remain committed to our capital allocation strategy over the long term while maintaining our investment grade credit rating.

For personal systems, the PC market size for the second half of calendar year 23 is smaller versus prior expectations driven mainly by demand weakness in China.

We expect industry CI levels will normalize by the end of Q4, resulting in improving ASPs as the quarter progresses.

but by less than initially expected and that enterprise demand will be softer.

We expect personal systems margins in Q4 to be at the higher end of our 5-7% long-term range driven by sequential revenue growth, lower commodity costs, and strong structural and operating cost savings.

margins in Q4 to be at the higher end of our 5 to 7% long-term range driven by sequential revenue growth, lower commodity costs, and strong structural and operating cost savings.

We expect overall print revenue will rebound sequentially due to seasonality. We expect supplies revenue and FY23 to decline by a low single digit.

with easier, you are near compares in Q4.

We expect print enterprise demand softness including industrial which will remain under pressure due to elongated sales cycles.

We expect print margins to be above the high end of our 16-18% target range per Q4, driven by disciplined pricing, in a competitive environment and cost management that will help to offset softened demand.

Taking these considerations into account, we are providing the following outlook for Q4 and fiscal year 2023.

We are lowering our FY23 non-gap EPS Outlook range by 11 cents at the midpoint.

The primary factors driving our guidance include our revised outlook for Q4 due to the macro challenges I discussed previously and the effect of the accounting adjustments I referenced earlier which impacts our H1-23 Non-Gap EPS by 3 sets.

We expect fourth quarter non-GAAP diluted net earnings per share to be in the range of 85 cents to 97 cents.

At 4.25 GAP, deluded net earnings per share to be in the range of 65 cents to 77 cents.

We expect FY23 non-GAAP diluted net earnings per share to be in the range of $3.23.

to $3.35.

And FY23, GAAP diluted net earnings per share to be in the range of $2.95.

to $3.07.

We expect free cash flow to be approximately $3 billion for FY23 in line with the low end of our prior guidance range of $3 to $3.5 billion.

And now I would like to hand it back to the operator and open the call for your question.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your touch tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys.

To withdraw your question, please press star 1 again. We also ask that you please limit yourself to one question and a single follow-up.

Our first question today will be amid Darynani with Evercore I-S-S-S-S-Evrcore-I-S-I. Your line is open.

Good afternoon, thanks for taking my question. I guess, Enrique, you've talked a fair bit about looking to optimize your cost structure. Can you just talk about what sort of cost savings are you expecting from these initiatives? And does that suggest that you expect these revenue headwinds that you're seeing right now persist into fiscal 24 as well?

Sure. Thank you for the question. So as we have said before, our goal for the next few years is to reduce our structural cost by $1.4 billion and to achieve 40% of those in fiscal year 23. And as Marie said, in the prepared remarks, we are on track to deliver on those. And you can see the impact of those in the rates of both businesses, personal systems and print is probably the best way to see the impact of what we are seeing.

I think some of the headwinds on the second part of your question about the headwinds, we think that most of the headwinds are temporary and that is more a delay on some of the progress that we were starting to see from a pricing perspective, for example. But nevertheless, as we always do, we are going to be looking at accelerating some of the savings that we had in the plan to compensate for them on the short term. In terms of our outlook for fiscal year 24, we have our investor day in about five weeks from now and this is when we will be sharing our plans for 24 and the overall view that we have for the company. That's perfect. I'll wait for the analyst for that one. I guess, Marie, when I think about free cash flow generation, 1.3 billion, give or take, for the year so far, if you think about what you need in Q4 to hit the $3 billion number, can you just talk about how much of that do you think is working capital improvement versus net income? Because it does seem like a pretty good step up in Q4 to achieve that. So just the levers that enable you to get there would be helpful. Thank you. Sure. No worries. And good afternoon. So first of all, I'll just start out with...

In terms of our outlook for fiscal year 24, sorry, I will finish. We have our investor day in about five weeks from now and this is when we will be sharing our plans for 24 and kind of the overall view that we have for the company. That's perfect. I'll wait for the analyst if that one. I guess Marie, when I think about free cash generation, you know, 1.3 billion give or take for the years so far. If you think about what you need in Q4 to hit the $3 billion number, can you talk about how much of that do you think is working capital improvement versus net income? It does seem like a pretty good step up in Q4 to achieve that. So just the levers that enable you to get that would be helpful. Thank you. Thank you.

free cash flow for Q4. If you take the midpoint of our revised guide, you can see that our net earnings is approximately 3.3 billion. So if you take that 3.3 and then you take off the 400 million of expected restructuring charges that get you into the 2.9 range and really the remaining, as you pointed out, it's really coming from an improvement in CCC. So really working capital is really one of the key drivers for cash flow in Q4. And that's very much in line with what actually happened in cash flow in Q3. Your next question comes from the line of Shannon Cross with Credit Suisse. Your line is open. Thank you very much for taking my question. As you look at the, I guess, PC and print business and subscriptions, you've talked about obviously a subscription ink. You've had a number of different things you're looking at on the print side. And I know you've talked about it in the future on PCs. I'm just curious, as you're looking at the market, if you're thinking about opportunities going forward, has there been any change in maybe customer buying behavior related to subscriptions? Have you seen any changes in terms of increased churn or maybe lower churn? I'm just wondering how that model is playing through your product line and then have a follow up. Thank you.

So if you take the midpoint of our revised guide, you can see that our net earnings is approximately 3.3 billion. So if you take that 3.3 and then you take off the 400 million of expected restructuring charges that get you into the 2.9 range and really the remaining, as you pointed out, it's really coming from an improvement in CCC. So really working capital is really one of the key drivers for cash flow in Q4 and that's very much in line with what actually happened in cash flow in Q3. Your next question comes from the line of Shannon Cross with Credit Suisse. Your line is open. Thank you very much for taking my question. As you look at the I guess PC and print business and subscriptions, you've talked about obviously subscription ink, you've had a number of different things you're looking at on the print side and I know you've talked about it in the future on PCs. I'm just curious as you're looking at the market, if you're thinking about opportunities going forward, has there been any change in maybe customer buying behavior related to subscriptions? Have you seen any changes in terms of increased churn or maybe lower churn? I'm just wondering how that model is playing through your product line and then I have a follow-up. Hi, Shannon. Thank you.

So, no big change in our thinking as we have shared this quarter, we continue to see growth in the number of enrollees, also in the revenue that we get from our subscription program. We have also continued expansion of our paper program as we shared a quarter ago, we wanted to expand internationally and this is what we have done. We are now present in several continuing Europe and the adoption continues to grow in terms of change, in no big changes in what we have seen during the last quarters. And then our plan continues to be as you were outlining to integrate more and more parts of our portfolio. In the coming months, we will start having the first PC and the printer subscription and we will continue the expansion after that. And that is important to highlight is going to become over time and more important part of our business. Mostly because it allows us to deliver a better value proposition to our customers. This is really why not only because of the financial but also because of the return and then piece this agritical part of our strategy going forward.

I was wondering, just with Polly, maybe you could provide more insights into what you've seen since the acquisition. I'm curious if there are opportunities. I know AI gets used at NAWJAM these days, but in terms of different ways that we might interact with our computers over time, I'm just wondering how you're seeing that asset both since you acquired it and then going forward to the extent you'll talk about it before the analyst day. Thank you. Thank you. I have a couple of comments. First of all, of course, some of the market trends that we have seen in the industry and some of the Polly competitors have shared those details. The Polly business has been impacted in the short term by a reduction in the time of some of the major markets.

At the same time, the reaction from our partners, customers, as I have shared in the past, has been extremely positive. And as you are saying, there is a lot of opportunity to innovate in that space and to deliver a much better a value proposition and a much better experience. We all know how painful some of the video conferences are when you have people in the room, people outside. And we just launched a solution using AI and sorry to use the AI term, where with AI we can manage or produce almost the video conference, the legs who will be talking frame the different people in the room. And we are seeing really much better experience for both people in the room and people outside the room. And when we will have both innovation day and our investor day, you will be able to see some of the solutions and see the value that they bring.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Toby Sakenagi with Bernstein. Your line is open. Yes, thank you. You talked about printing and the need to really focus on trying to find incremental cost improvement. And you specifically alluded to that for printing. And I'm wondering if...

That statement is pointing to the fact that you see something structurally more challenged in printing than you did before. And I have a follow-up, please.

Thank you. Good question, Tony. So, as we, what we have seen in printing is that, especially on the home side, we have seen a significant decline of units.

I think it's in the range of 20%. And this clearly will put more pressure on the print business going forward. It's not a short-term impact, but it's really more a medium and long-term impact.

And even if, in many cases, the units we have lost are low-end units, which have relatively low value, clearly there is going to be more pressure there. And this is why we mentioned that we are going to be accelerating some of the cost reduction activities that we had in the plan, especially focused on home, on consumer, which is when we are seeing this pressure, and things like acceleration of the simplification of the portfolio, acceleration of the business model transformation, growing more in what we call big ink and big toner, are all the different combinations where we are accelerating our plans. And again, we will discuss this more in detail in a few weeks.

Thank you. And then if I could just follow up, it sounds like the demand environment is pretty challenging and the pricing environment is pretty challenging. And yet, the margins that you're experiencing in both businesses and that you're guiding for and Q4 are actually above what your longer term targets are. And so I was wondering if you could be going to bed or I said that to Canada, and that is right that we, you should leave us to be going to bed or I said that to Canada, and that is right that we, you should leave us.

Thank you. And then if I could just follow up, you know, it sounds like the demand environment is pretty challenging and the pricing environment is pretty challenging. And yet, you know, the margins that you're experiencing in both businesses and that you're guiding for in Q4 are actually above what your longer-term targets are. And so I was wondering if you could reconcile that.

And are those targets too low for printing and for PCs? Or why in the face of pricing pressure and volume pressure are you not seeing margins go down into the range? And what are the trigger points for margins going back down into the range on print and more in the middle of the range on PCs?

And are those targets too low for printing and for PCs or why in the face of pricing pressure and volume pressure, are you not seeing margins go down into the range and what are the trigger points for margins going back down into the range on print and more in the middle of the range on PCs? Hey Tony, good afternoon.

So why don't I go ahead and comment on the margin ranges for both business and sort of unpack some of the drivers there? But first of all, I'd start out by saying you are seeing some of the benefits that we've spoken about today and in prior calls of the future ready transformation. You know, as we've said in the past, we do expect to see those savings flow through to both cost sales and op-ex. And frankly, I think you're seeing the benefits of that in the rate. Obviously, there are some nuances by business, or I'll just unpack it quickly so to give you that detail in terms of personal systems, you know, we are expecting to see quarter on quarter. So, frankly, some gradual improvement in pricing as we start to see some of that normalization of CI. So there is a factor of that in the rate as well combined with the impact of lower commodity costs and then both structural and operating costs that we spoke about earlier. And obviously that's offset by some of the enterprise softness.

With respect to print, it is a combination of both strategy and execution. We've got the portfolio rebalancing, I think we talked a little bit about that earlier with Shannon, plus honestly pricing discipline and then the cost management from our transformation. So it's all those factors combined, but you can see there that certainly cost is a key element. And then I think in terms of the long term, we're still very confident that for print, the 16 to 18 is the right long term rate. And that's because there are a number of different forcing functions there, particularly as you look at the guidance that we've given about supplies in terms of the revenue decline there and the low to mid-single digit, and plus a much more competitive sort of pricing environment that we've seen in consumer. And some of that is even evidenced in enterprise more recently. But I think we're overall confident that the rates are the right rates and the right ranges for us.

and print an alternative, Enrique, anything else to add? Not much to add, Marie, you covered it well. Maybe the last comment is, as we had mentioned before, we don't manage the businesses for the rate, we manage them for operating profit dollars, and this is really what we care the most. We provide ranges because we know it's important for all of you to be able to model, but our goal is to grow operating profit dollars for the company.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Semictcheteatergy with JP Morgan. Your line is open.

Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Semictcheteatergy with JP Morgan. Your line is open. Yeah. Hey, thanks for the make questions.

I guess if I can start off with a question more in relation to the moderation of the sequential improvement into 4Q that you're outlining because of the macro. And maybe if you can flesh out how to think about how much of that impact is volume or unit driven versus a more promotional environment in the segments that you anticipated at this time. Just trying to get a sense of how much of this relates to sub-seasonal PC volume growth versus maybe just a more promotional environment than you were anticipating. And have a quick follow up. Thank you.

Perfect, thank you. Really thank you for the question because this was one of the most important things we wanted to clarify in the call.

Let me start by saying that the biggest driver of the change of guide we have made is that we are not expecting PC prices to recover sequentially as much as we were expecting one quarter ago.

And this is really driven by what we think is the channel situation at the market level. Because even if we have mostly normalized our channel inventories, our estimate is that the industry continues to have significant channel inventory and therefore we will continue, we need to continue to expect aggressive prices, aggressive promotions through Q4.

And this is really what is the major driver behind that. There are other changes that maybe Marie you want to explain as well? Yes, absolutely. So why don't I just give a little bit more context in terms of what Enrique commented on, Samik. I think if you think about the Q4 guide, obviously the macro is in there and we've talked about that I think at our prepared remarks around those headwinds that we've seen, including the sluggish recovery in China. But in addition, just in terms of personal systems, it's really, you know, the way to think about it is the market size and the opportunity. And it's driven by sort of both ASP pressure that we talked about in terms of that CI and then also the softer demand that we've seen in the enterprise. And then finally, there's also some pressure on the print business just in terms of the enterprise softness and that's really an industrial where we're seeing

today just elongated sales cycles due to that pressure. So let me maybe add to final things. First of all, even if our expectation is that most of these changes are really temporary, we are not standing still. And this is why we mentioned that we are going to be accelerating some of the future ready course reductions to compensate for these. And then to close, I think it's also important to remember that despite of these change, we expect the performance of the company to improve once more sequentially Q4, Q3, but we have done Q3, Q2, and we did Q2, Q1. That's important to have in mind.

based on PC imports. How are you thinking about implementation of that or what you're assuming in your guide relative to that impact? I know it's not a big market overall, but just in terms of what you're assuming and what are you seeing in terms of how to navigate that situation. Thank you.

Yes, we don't think there is going to be much impact of the potential ban in India in the short term. And in the long term, we had already been working for a while to increase our manufacturing capacity in India. You know in parallel to the ban, they launched also the local production plan, the PLI 2.0 plan. We have applied to participate on that and we are working with them to ramp our manufacturing capacity there. We are working with them to ramp our manufacturing capacity in India.

India is not a huge market, but it's a very important market for us where we see a lot of long-term potential and this is why we are reacting to that. And in fact, maybe just to close, only this week we announced with GEO the launch of the first cloud PC that we have been working with them for a while, which we think is going to be a new category of PCs that are going to help us really accelerate our growth in that country.

huge market, but it's a very important market for us, where we see a lot of long-term potential and this is why we are reacting to that. And in fact, maybe just too close. Only this week we announced with Geo, the launch of the first cloud PC that we have been working with them for a while, which we think is going to be a new category of PC that are going to help us to really accelerate our growth in that country. Thank you. Thank you, handout.

Your next question comes from the line of Eric Woodring with Morgan Stanley . Your line is open. Great. Thank you for taking my questions this afternoon. And, Rick, maybe can you dig into some of the PC Channel of Ventory comments a bit more, meaning, you know, how should we think about the specific regions where channel inventories might be more elevated than others? Are there any regions where channel inventories have normalized?

Maybe had to think about that with traditional PCs versus Chromebooks, if there is any difference. And then ultimately how that does impact your view on the 2023 PCTAM. I think last quarter you talked about 250 to 260 million units. How are you guys thinking about it today? And then I will follow up. Thank you.

Lots of questions in the question. I'll try to cover everything. So in terms of channel inventory, we are really pleased with the progress we have made normalizing our inventory.

We are almost there, and I say almost because the area where we still have channel inventory is actually what you mentioned about Chromebooks. As you know, Google is going to be increasing the royalty prices in the coming weeks, and therefore we saw at the very end of the quarter an increased order and pull-up demand of customers and partners that wanted to take advantage of lower prices. So we shipped those, and this is the area where we still have high inventory, but for the rest we are now in a very good position.

We are almost there and I say almost because the area where we still have some channel inventory is actually what you mentioned about Chromebooks. As you know, Google is going to be increasing the royalty prices in the coming weeks and therefore we saw at the very end of the quarter, some increased orders and pull up demand of customers and partners that wanted to take advantage of lower prices. So we sheep those and this is the area where we still have some high inventory but for the rest we are now in a very good position. In terms of time.

We have reduced slightly the time for fiscal year 2024-2023. Most of the reduction is coming from the new time in China that is really, as the market has not grown as much as we were expecting, this has created some impact on the overall time. And then we have seen also a slight change between the mix of consumer and commercial where consumer has been performing better, and especially because of most sluggish demand on the enterprise side, we have seen the commercial projection reducing.

Thank you. Super, that's helpful. Thank you very much, Enrique. And then maybe just to follow up, I wanted to get back to some of your comments on PC pricing. You know, maybe can you just talk about, again, some of those underlying factors in terms of relative to the July quarter, how we should think about the intensity of promotions, mix shift, and ultimately, you know, I interpreted it from your comments, we should be thinking about PCASP growth sequentially, just at a lower rate. I just want to make sure that's the takeaway we should be taking away from your comments. Thanks so much.

So let me start there. So yes, our current assumption is that price, ASPs for PCs will grow Q3 to Q4, but the growth will be more moderate than we were expecting a quarter ago. And again, the major driver of this is the fact that at the market level, we continue to see, or our estimate is a channel event that is higher than what it should be, and therefore we are going to continue to see pressure from a promotional perspective. There is also an element of mix. Since I also mentioned that consumers in Q3 and we expect in Q4 perform better than expected, and the reverse happens on the commercial side, and as you know, usually ASPs for commercial are better than ASPs for consumer.

Now what I think is important to highlight is our PC business grew from Q3 to Q4. From Q3 to Q2, we expected to grow also from Q4 to Q3. So the recovery of the business is happening.

Super, thanks so much for the extra color. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Sydney Ho with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Thank you. I want to ask about the full year EPS guidance. The midpoint is coming down by 11 cents, and I assume most of that is coming out of fiscal Q4. Based on your answer to a previous question, is it fair to assume most of that is coming from lower revenue?

How big of an impact is lower margin also a factor and then there are other options that we should be thinking about.

Let me start talking about Q4 and then Asimari will talk about the full year. So in Q4, as I said before, the majority of the impact comes from the change in the expectation that we have in PC pricing. We expect it to improve Q3 to Q4, but less than we were expecting before. And this has a significant impact on margin. There are other smaller factors like the size of the market in China, the enterprise performance where we have seen a slowdown of orders, and even by industrial print, that also is a segment where we have seen an impact. But the majority of it comes from the change in price assumptions for PCs.

And then very hard to figure here. Yeah, so I want to just walk you through the full year. He is Sydney. So basically as Enrique said, the Q4 is a cent and then we had a 3 cent adjustment for an accounting correction in the first half. So really just in terms of just the drivers, I think the right way to unpack it is it's really the PC market size for the second half of calendar 23 that's more than expected. And the industry, you know, CI comments that Enrique talked about. But I think the key is we're going to see those improving ASPs that the quarter progresses, but you know, but it's less than we initially expected. So if you look at that, plus the enterprise demand and PS and print, that's really what are the drivers of the 8 cents in Q4. Okay, that's helpful. Maybe as a follow up last quarter, you guys talked about commodities pricing being a tailwind for you in fiscal Q3, which seems to be the case, but fiscal Q4 could be different. Can you give us an update there? How long do you think those strategic drivers that you have done be able to shield you from commodity price increases? Any way you can quantify that. That will be helpful. Thanks.

Sure, so to give you some context there, Sydney, as you rightly said, we have seen the benefit of commodity costs in Q3 across both businesses, frankly, both personal systems and print. There are some unique ICs in print that are still somewhat in an inflationary state, but overall the costs have been favorable for commodities in both businesses. We do expect that that will carry forward into Q4, so there will be additional commodity cost declines in Q4 sequentially. In terms of how we're thinking about strategic buys, I would say, I think I've said this in prior calls, we do feel it's really important to be operationally excellent, but frankly we're going to take advantage of opportunities that make financial sense. So if there are strategic buys that fit that profile and that character, we'll absolutely take advantage of them. But I think the overall environment is we're seeing those positive trends, but I'd just add that the favorable trends in CPUs, we're starting to expect to see those to flatten out.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of David Vogue with UBS. Your line is open. Great. Thank you guys for taking my question. Can I just go back to the margin dynamic Marie, given all of the moving pieces, particularly around lower obviously PC sales, smaller cam, and sort of the mix. I guess away from Chromebooks in the fiscal fourth quarter, I guess I'm still going back to Tony's question. I'm still trying to struggle with how.

We kind of walk through again all the different moving factors on why PSG margins are going to be towards the high end Given a you know a smaller sort of unit base with you know obviously pricing pressure That's leading to maybe a slower uptick in price in the fourth quarter than you had originally expected, and then I have a follow-up So why did I walk you through Q3 first what happened and then through Q4 because I think that paint

the context and how to think about Q4. So if you look at the Q3 rate, which was 6-6, it was really a cost story, whether we talked about just the way we manage costs, the results of the structural costs that we've driven through their future-ready program. And then I just spoke with Sydney about the commodity costs. So we saw that cost benefit clearly in personal systems in Q3. Much of that is, frankly, going to be a rinse and repeat into Q4. And there's just a couple of additional drivers in there that help to buffer the rate into the higher end of the range. And that is, I think what Enrique clearly articulated was that gradual improvement in pricing that we expect to happen Q3, Q4. And that's really due to the stabilization of the CI level. So that's an additional factor over and above what we had in Q3. And that's really, I think, the best way to think about the rates, particularly in personal systems as you think about Q4. And then obviously, we've still got, underpinning all that is the enterprise softness that continues to be out there in the market as well. But that's really what's driving it. And I hope that provides you some more context.

Okay, okay, thank you. And then on on capital allocation, I know you took down some debt in the third quarter. And I think I've heard you correctly, and I tell myself later, I apologize, that it sounds like you're going to restart the buyback in the fourth quarter. I guess from a cadence perspective, does that suggest that you think you'll be under the gross leverage target in fiscal 24 that you have sort of laid out there that two turns of gross leverage, given the cost initiatives that you talked about in prior remarks, and we should expect sort of a more consistent capital return going forward, or could we see another situation where maybe there's a bit of a pause, if we hit that gross leverage target or maybe, you know, dole about this for a little bit.

Well, I'll just say that, you know, our strategy remains the same. We intend to, you know, manage our leverage under two. And I'd say we should also look at it over the longer term and not just sort of quarter to quarter. Obviously, we're pleased with where we landed two, three, and you know, we're slightly under two times debt debitter. And in terms of then how to think about leverage and share repurchasing, just, you might have missed the call. So let me just clarify. We said in the call that we expect.

to start to buy back shares, to start to manage delusion in Q4. I think that comments are really important because I'm not sure if you caught the comments on the call, but that's just sort of how we're thinking about it, and obviously key to us is the commitment we've made around returning 100% about pre-cash flow to shareholders. So I'll turn it over to Enrique to probably, I know he's got some thoughts around this as well. Yes, I think two to comments. First, I was 30, he remains the same, so no change, and I think that's important for investors to know. At the same time, the way you ask the question, I think, is the right way to ask it. We are not managing our leverage ratio for one quarter. We need to manage it for the long term, and therefore we think it's important to restart in a prudent way. We are going to restart by compensating quarterly delusion, and this is how we are going to start, and we will solidify our plans for 24 and beyond. And we have conviction that we will be able to maintain the leverage ratio below two. We will accelerate our plans. But we're going to restart prudently, which we think, given the environment where we are, is the right thing to do.

Great, that's helpful. Thanks for the clarification. Our next question comes from the line of Asya merchant with city groups. Your line is open. Great. Thank you for the opportunity. If you could just unpack a little bit of what's going on on these supply side, given that the print hardware unit.

I think even on the inkjet side, on the consumer side are guided down. What gives you some confidence is supplies revenue is I guess unchanged here. I think of down low digits and constant currency terms.

Thank you. Yeah, I'm happy to. Hi, Aisha. So in terms of supplies, we still do expect to be in the range of low to mid for FY23. And there's really two primary drivers. One is the usage trends and the second is the share trends. And I would say usage is very much its declining and line with what we expected. But what we've seen is that pricing remains resilient. And another important factor is the fact that our inventory in the multi-tier ecosystem remains in healthy shapes. So, and just one thing to think about when you do the comp, you know, don't look for the sort of year on year because last quarter, we had a relatively easy.

Yeah, I'm happy to. Hi, Aisha. So in terms of supplies, we still do expect to be in the range of low to mid for FY23. And there's really two primary drivers. One is the usage trends and the second is the share trends. I would say usage is very much its declining and line with what we expected. But what we've seen is that pricing remains resilient. And another important factor is the fact that our inventory in the multi-tiered ecosystem remains in healthy shapes. So, and just one thing to think about when you do the comp, you know, don't look for the sort of year on year because last quarter we had a relatively easy compare because we had a tough...

So look over the long term. I think that's the right way to think about supplies. And then re-gave if you've got anything else you want to add. Well, maybe one additional comment. I think if we think about supplies, there are multiple drivers of supplies performance. One is clearly the number of units that is being installed, which as I told, I think was Tony before this is going to create some pressure as well as we are saying. On the other side, we also have the levels of price, which is something that has been working for us for three-and-a-years, and especially shared. And as we have said before, we have been growing our share of supplies three-and-a-lice quarters. It's continued to happen this quarter, and this is also a part of our strategy going forward.

Great. And then just from the Japanese competitors, anything, I think there was some comments made on, you know, taking advantage of the enemy has missed her. But if you could just kind of talk to us about the competitive dynamics and print and how you guys are kind of thinking about that over the next couple of quarters. Yes. So we have clearly seen an increase of aggressive pricing from some of our Japanese competitors. Of course, if you look at the currency rate between $1 and yen is at one of the lowest levels it's been in a long time. And this clearly gives them.

And then just from the Japanese competitors, anything, I think there was some comments made on, you know, taking advantage of the enemy has missed her dad, but if you can just kind of talk to us about the competitive dynamics and print. And how you guys are kind of thinking about that over the next couple of quarters. Yes, so we have clearly seen an increase of aggressive pricing from some of our Japanese competitors. Of course, if you look at the currency rate between $1 and yen is. But one of the lowest levels has been in a long time and this clearly gives them an advantage.

Our strategy has not changed. We think we need to continue to sell positive and TV units, units that will not create some profitable customers. And this is why in some areas of the segments like in the low end, we're really another reactive, around profitable units. We are losing share because this is not a business that we're going to go after. In some areas of the segment, we are losing share because we are losing share because we are losing share. We are losing share because we are losing share.

And based on what we see, we don't think this is gonna be changing any time soon. And this is why we also mentioned that we are gonna be actually rating our cost actions in print.

both to be more competitive in the short and especially also to be able to maintain our profitability and going forward.

both to be more competitive in the short term, but especially also to be able to maintain our profitability going forward. Thank you.

And I think these were the last questions, so let me use this opportunity to close. First of all, I think we delivered a solid quarter in Q3 in a clearly tough environment where we continued to improve our sequential performance while also continuing to invest in the future. And this is really at the core of our Future Ready plan that is enabling to do both savings that we can use to continue to invest and also to respond.

And I think this was the last question. So let me use this opportunity to close. First of all, I think we delivered a solid courted in Q3 in a clearly tough environment where we continued to improve our sequential performance while also continuing to invest in the future. And this is really at the core of our future-ready plan that is enabling to do both savings that we can use to continue to invest and also to respond to short-term challenges.

And then, to close, and'm really looking forward to see all of you in person- or most of you in person- on not overber tenth, here in paloalto, and we will be talking our about of our plan for 24: innovation and long term plan. So thank you for joining the call and looking forward to see all of you nepfew weeks or now. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. We thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your line. We hope you have ben.

This concludes today's conference call. We thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your line.