Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Second Quarter 2022 HP Inc. Earnings Conference Call. My name is Josh and I’ll be your conference moderator for today’s call. At this time, all participants will be in listen-only mode. We will be facilitating a question-and-answer session toward the end of the conference. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the call over to Orit Keinan-Nahon, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to HP’s second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. With me today are Enrique Lores, HP’s President and Chief Executive Officer; and Marie Myers, 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 made 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 webpage 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 a discussion of some of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, please refer to HP’s SEC reports, including our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q. 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 Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended April 30, 2022 and HP’s other SEC filings. During this webcast, unless otherwise specifically noted, all comparisons are year-over-year comparisons with the corresponding year-ago period. 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 earning release for those reconciliations. With that, I’d now like to turn the call over to Enrique.

Thanks, Orit, and thank you to everyone joining our call today. We are now halfway for our 2022 fiscal year, and I am proud of the results our teams have delivered as we continue building a stronger HP. But before I talk about our performance, I want to acknowledge the tragic events of the past few weeks. Last Tuesday, 19 children and two of their teachers were senselessly killed at a Texas elementary school. About a week earlier, 10 people were killed in a racially motivated attack in Buffalo. These horrific events and others like them are deeply disturbing and our hearts are with the communities who are bearing unimaginable loss right now. At the same time, we're also thinking about the people of Ukraine. More than three months into the war with Russia, the devastation and suffering across Ukraine is difficult to comprehend. So too is the situation facing the six million Ukrainian refugees. We continue to mobilize resources to support them. The HP Foundation has provided additional funding to support humanitarian relief across Central Europe. And we are donating a significant number of PCs to help refugees and their families, consistent with our global efforts to promote digital equity and education. Times like this are a painful reminder of how much work is still needed to create a more just future. And I believe it's incumbent upon companies to lead with purpose. These values have long been core to HP brand, and they will continue to guide us. Let me now turn to our results. When we held our Investor Day last October, I discussed our plans to continue our push to advance our leadership in our core markets, while creating a more growth-oriented portfolio by expanding its adjacencies and creating new businesses. I also highlighted the long-term…

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. It's great to connect with you again. As Enrique highlighted, we have continued to build on our progress here in Q2, executing on our strategy, delivering solid results, returning significant capital to shareholders and investing both organically and inorganically to drive long-term value creation. Overall demand remained solid, driven by the strong secular tailwinds we see propelling our businesses forward, and we continue to execute on our objectives despite ongoing supply chain and logistics challenges and new macro impacts from the recent round of COVID-related lockdowns in China and the Russia-Ukraine war. Overall, I am pleased with how our teams are meeting these challenges head on and remain confident in our execution, as we navigate this evolving macro environment. Let's take a closer look at the details of the quarter. Net revenue was $16.5 billion in the quarter, up 4% nominally and 5% in constant currency. Regionally, in constant currency, Americas increased 1%, EMEA increased 7% and APJ increased 10%. Gross margin was 20.2% in the quarter, down 1.5 points year-on-year. The decrease was primarily driven by proportionally higher Personal Systems mix and higher costs, including commodities, partially offset by favorable pricing net of currency. Non-GAAP operating expenses were $1.9 billion or 11.4% of revenue, down 5%. The decrease in operating expenses was primarily driven by lower R&D due to last years ramp-up in investments and lower variable compensation, including sales commission. Non-GAAP operating profit was $1.4 billion, and non-GAAP net OI&E expense was $74 million for the quarter. At the key segment level, operating profit grew 6%. Non-GAAP diluted net earnings per share increased $0.15 or 16% to $1.08 with a diluted share count of approximately 1.1 billion shares. Non-GAAP diluted net earnings per share excludes a net expense totaling $152 million, primarily…

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] And our first question today will be from Krish Sankar with Cowen and Company. Your line is open.

Hi, thanks for taking my question and congrats on the strong results and execution in a tough environment. My first question is for Enrique, and then I have a follow-up for Marie. Enrique, on the PC business, it makes sense, commercial is strong. But it looks like desktop did much better than notebooks, both in terms of revenue and units. Can you just help us understand what's happening in commercial between desktop and notebook? And any view on PC TAM, unit TAM for this year? Your competitors spoke about 330 million units, kind of curious what your view is. And then I have a quick follow-up for Marie on inventory. Thank you.

Sure. Thank you. Let me start with desktops and actually same happened with workstations. The growth this quarter is really helped from an easy compare last year. If you remember last year, not many companies were investing in equipment for the office. This drove the sales of desktops and workstations down. And now we are seeing the opposite effect as some of this investment is coming back. I think on the overall PC market, the important thing to have in mind is the strength of the demand on the commercial side. We are seeing this across the board, across all geographies, and this is especially true on high configurations given the new use models that PCs are going to have. And this is why even if for the year, going now to the second part of your question, we expect the overall PC market in terms of units to decline slightly. This is very similar to what other analysts and other companies have shared. From a revenue perspective, we see growth really driven by mix as commercial will become bigger, premium categories within commercial will be bigger. And also as premium consumer and gaming will become a more relevant part of the market.

Got it, Enrique. Follow-up for Marie on inventory. Last quarter, you said you're not planning to decrease inventory, and it's kind of elevated in terms of inventory days. Can you give us some color on how much of it is finished goods or raw materials and components? How much of it is actually buildup of materials versus cost inflation? Any kind of color on inventory would be very helpful. Thank you very much

Sure, and good afternoon, Christian, and thanks for your question. So from a sequential perspective, our inventory actually declined, and that was due to in-transit offset by higher commodity costs due to supply constraints. Now in terms of both print and PS, a couple of different dynamics. So let me give you some color. So -- on the Print side, it's really driven by the assurance of supply, given the ongoing supply constraints that we're seeing on the print side and also just the longer lead and transit times. And then in PS, what's going on there is really the shift in motor transport. So -- as you might recall, I think we made this comment in our last call that we stopped using the train that we have used extensively from China to Europe, and we shifted a lot more of PS onto the ocean we've seen that shift from air to ocean. So that's what you're seeing. And then obviously, sea shipments are really for economic value and really drive much better pass-through, a lot better cost for us. So that's hopefully the perspective on inventory for you.

We have said in the past, our medium-term plan is to continue to reduce own inventory. We think we have an opportunity there. And with the component situation getting better, we really think that this is going to be our plan during the next quarter.

Your next question comes from the line of Aaron Rakers with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Yes. Thank you very much for taking the questions and congrats on the good execution in the quarter. Two questions, one and one follow-up. First, I'm just curious, Enrique and Maria, if you could kind of dive a little bit deeper into the commercial backlog in the PC segment. What's your expectations of working that backlog down? Is your guidance assuming that you continue to have an elevated backlog? Any kind of commentary on how we should think about the trajectory of that backlog through the back half of this fiscal year.

Yes. So thank you. So as we said in the prepared remarks, commercial backlog, commercial PC backlog and especially commercial continues to be elevated. Our plan is to reduce that during the coming quarters, and we will continue to improve the situation from a supply chain perspective. And by the end of the year or early next year, should be -- we should be done with that.

Yes Okay. That's helpful. And then the follow-up question is just looking at the pricing trends you're seeing within PSG. Could you help us appreciate how much of it is being mix driven versus your ability to pass through increased pricing from components and logistics? I'm just curious if you can help us understand the effects of pricing.

Yes. No, I'd say, first of all, we definitely benefited from favorable pricing. And I think we've made those comments over the last couple of quarters. And really, it's due to that supply and demand imbalance that we've been experiencing. And I'd say particularly on the PS side, we've been able to actually pass-through a lot of that inflationary pricing straight through into our products. Now, I would just add, if the supply and demand starts to come back into closer alignment, we'll start to see some of that pricing normalize. But right now, in terms of just the current outlook, we really expect pricing to remain strong in the second half of the year.

And in terms of your comment about mix, mix has also a significant impact on pricing. And really, when we -- you need to think about mix, you need to think about the new use models for PCs. PCs are more-and-more used as communication tools, which means customers need more memory, better cameras, better audio. And this is really driving demand towards the richer categories and the more premium products and is really having a significant impact on the overall price -- on pricing.

Yeah. I should add. Just on the mix comment actually, this quarter, around 65% of our PS portfolio is commercial, which obviously, as you know, has higher ASPs. So it's a combination of both, the mix and the rate, which is really driving that favorability in pricing.

Your next question comes from the line of Amit Daryanani with Evercore. Your line is open.

Thanks for taking my question. And congrats on a good quarter. Mine as well I guess I have two as well. The first one is, just on the Print side, and I think your operating margin performance there was really impressive in the April quarter. So, maybe you could just talk about, what is enabling this really strong 19% plus operating margin performance in April, despite the supply [Indiscernible] that you had? And then, as you think about the back half, it doesn't seem like mix is getting any different versus what you have in April. So, why would margins dip down based on what you said, on the Print side?

Yeah. So the performance of the Print business this quarter was really driven by supply. We continue to see demand significantly above supply. And in supply, we are impacted mostly by component availability. And therefore, our focus was on really profit optimization through pricing, through allocation of units. And this is why profitability this quarter was so strong. As we shared before, we expect the supply situation to improve through the end of the year. And as we -- this will happen we also expect that pricing will be normalized, as Marie just explained.

Yeah. Maybe I'll just add some comments then on Q3 on the print rate and what we expect to happen. As we've said, we expect for the full year that would be at the high-end of that range. And in fact actually what we're expecting in Q3 it actually would be slightly above that. And really what that's driven by is a combination of the supply constraints that Enrique spoke about, some of the mix that we're starting to see as the office reopens. And then, given that backdrop, we're still seeing the impact of that favorable pricing, I just spoke about a moment ago, so we'll expect some of that to come through. And obviously, we're doing all of that, while we're offsetting currency headwinds as well. So overall, we would expect the rate for Print to certainly in the year be at the high-end of that long-term range.

Understood. And then, if I could just ask you around the non-GAAP adjustments that are being made for the fiscal 2022 guide. I understand you're raising the non-GAAP numbers, but the GAAP numbers that are coming down. So I think the adjustments are $0.45 this time, 90 days ago, that was $0.31. Maybe I don't understand this enough, but could you just talk about what is resulting or what are the incremental adjustments that are being made? Is it restructuring? Is it Russia? And if you could just break that down, that would be helpful.

Sure, happy to do so. So, we actually revised our FY 2022 GAAP guidance. And we actually have $0.11 just to clarify at the midpoint. So let me walk you through these really four key items that are driving it, which you captured a couple in your comments. So first of all, with the acquisition-related charges, related to Poly. As you know, we announced that just a little while ago, so that wasn't included in our prior GAAP guidance. Secondly, there are charges with Russia, which we actually -- I spoke about I think in my prepared remarks. And then we also have the timing acceleration of some real estate actions related to our transformation. And then finally, we've got some onetime related tax adjustments as well. So that's basically the construct for the revised GAAP guide.

Your next question comes from the line of Toni Sacconaghi with Bernstein. Your line is open.

Yes. Thank you for taking the question. I have two as well. I just want to understand the backlog dynamics that happened in the quarter and what you're expecting going forward. So, I think you said you drew down backlog in PCs was book-to-bill and revenues positive in the quarter? Can you give us some sense of how much backlog drawdown there was in PCs? And was there any backlog drawdown in printing? And when we think about the remainder of the year, if there's a supplier disruption in PCs, why would you expect to be able to continue to draw down backlog in Q3? And I have a follow-up, please.

Sure. So, as I commented before, Toni, we saw a reduction of backlog Q2 -- Q1 to Q2, visibly driven by the ability to ship some of the units at the -- and increase some of the volumes in some specific areas. As we look out through the end of the year, we expect the supply situation to improve, and therefore, we expect to continue to reduce backlog in the rest of the year. In the case of print, we continue to operate also with a high level of backlog. The reduction there was smaller. And we expect that we will be able to start reducing that more significantly in the Q4 timeframe, which is where we have visibility of some of the actions we have taken in supply chain to take more impact.

Okay. Thank you. But I'm still not quite clear why, if you have a supplier constraint and you're expecting lower revenues in Q3 from PCs, why you think you'll draw down backlog? And can I also just get you to clarify typically, seasonally, Printing is down Q2 to Q3. I think you're saying PCs will be down Q2 to Q3. Is that what we should expect? And again, if we -- if you're drawing down backlog, that feels a lot lower. Typically, you're up 4% sequentially from Q2 to Q3. So again, I'm just trying to square the circle with your anticipated backlog drawdowns and the dynamics of having weaker than seasonal PC revenues in Q3? Thank you.

Yes. So, the comment about growing backlog is more a second half quarter – a second half comment. Specifically, in Q3 we have identified a very specific problem with one of our PC component supplier that is, having some special issues on yield in one other factory. This is going to be impacting our shipments in Q3 for PC. We have line of sight for this to be recovered in Q4. And this is why from a seasonality perspective, revenue in Personal Systems in PC in Q3 will be below Q2. And again, the backlog coming in a second half comment, not a quarter-over-quarter comment. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Erik Woodring with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Awesome. Thank you for the quarter -- excuse me, thank you for the question. Congrats on the quarter. If we take a step back, it's been a pretty unique time in the market, kind of the best PC growth in the decade plus short supply, which has allowed you to hold pricing. And then, at the same time, you've been able to work through a multiyear cost-cutting kind of transformation program, and it's clearly showing up in your margin profile, right, pre-kind of COVID period operating margins were around 7% to 7.5%. Right now, they're running around 9% consistently. So, just curious kind of -- is there a way that you can break down the margin uplift between kind of mix and kind of the permanency of the changes that you've made versus temporary factors like pricing that you expect to potentially normalize in the back half of the year and into next year? And then I have a follow-up. Thanks.

Sure. Probably the best way to answer, Erik, is to go back to the guidance we provided in our Investor Day in October, where we share, what is our perspective for both businesses. In the case of Personal Systems, we expect margins to be between 5% and 7% going forward. We raised that in October from what we had before to reflect, especially the impact of the cost activities that we have put in place, and also the focus that we had in higher margin categories. And I like to remind you that several of our growth areas like gaming, peripheral and services in the case of PC will help us to sustain these higher margins. In the case of print, our margins -- our projection is that margins will stay in the 16% to 18% range. And again, our long-term strategy is really focused on those categories where we think we can drive both growth and sustainable margins. While at the same time, we expect that some of the pricing benefits we have experienced during the last two years will fade over time.

Okay. That's really helpful. Thank you, Enrique. And then maybe a question on Print. Go back to SAM 2019, you laid out this business model pivot for the printing business to collect more profits upfront from the sale of printing hardware, while at the same time introducing programs like HP+ to make supplies stickier in certain situations. So, we're now more than two years away from that announcement. Can you just kind of give us an update on where we are on this pivot? How much is left to do, kind of what inning we're in? And then, really how a normalization and kind of supply and demand and pricing dynamics could change or alter your ability to kind of capture some of these higher hardware prices that you've been able to do over the last, call it, two years and change. Thanks.

Sure. Thank you. We are very pleased with the program that we are doing in the pivot of the business model. We shared today that today, in Q2, around 48% of the units are either what we call profit upfront, so customers get a printer and the ink or toner when they get the unit or HP+ unit. So this gives you an idea of the progress that we have made in the last two years, and we expect this percentage to continue to increase as the adoption for HP plants will continue to grow. Another important element of our strategy is the growth of our subscription model. And also, we shared today that in Q2 that business both from subscribers and from a revenue perspective, we grew double digit. So this also shows the momentum that we have in that part of the company.

Your next question comes from the line of Jim Suva with Citigroup. Your line is open.

Thank you. I have some pretty easy specific questions, one for Enrique and one for Marie. Enrique, I believe it was a year ago, you highlighted the strength in Chromebook's from HP. Now will we -- can you help us kind of quantify how much exposure you have to PC because now the world, of course, is opposite of the view of strength for Chromebook's. Just want to see the risk there? And then for Marie, is the reason why we're not increasing free cash flow is that as a function of those four items that you mentioned on the adjustments of the Russia, the closing costs, non-GAAP tax adjustments and things like that? Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you, Jim. So the exposure -- the size of the overall Chromebook business is relatively small in our Personal Systems business. It lends 10% from a revenue perspective and much smaller from an operating profit or margin perspective. So the exposure that we have is relatively small. Shipments of Chromebook this quarter were also small. So this shows that we can really perform in a very strong way of Personal Systems even in there, we have very small Chromebook market. What we have seen during this year, and we started to see it a few quarters ago, and we have talked about this before is a significant slowdown of the Chromebook business in the US in the education segment, we are starting to see some signs of recovery, but the market has continued to be significantly below where it was a year ago.

Jim, good morning. Just on your comments on free cash flow, just to clarify. So as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we do expect to generate at least $4.5 billion in free cash flow this year. So we remain very much on track. And with respect to the items that I explained on the GAAP guide in terms of their impact on cash flow, the impacts that we had in the quarter were really much more related to PS volumes in the back-end loaded revenue linearity. As you heard Enrique say earlier, we expect that to course correct in Q4. So at this point, we expect our cash flow to remain on track for our guide.

Your next question comes from the line of Ananda Baruah with Loop Capital. Your line is open.

Yeah. Hey, good afternoon guys. Congrats on the results and strong execution in an increasingly challenging environment. Two, if I could, have you guys seen any impact to any of your commercial business for macro? And are you getting any feedback yet if you've not seen any impact yet, are you getting any feedback yet from customers about what they're thinking? And then I have a follow-up as well. Thanks.

Thank you, Ananda. So the answer is not yet. We haven't -- we continue to see strong demand on the commercial side. We have a strong funnel. So we don't see any signals of weakening of the demand on the commercial side. And this is one of the key drivers of the guide that we have provided for the rest of the year.

Enrique, that's really helpful. And then, Enrique, just moving over to the PC business quickly. How much -- I believe that 90 days ago, sort of, 90 days ago, 180 days ago, you guys are thinking that the market, PC market would be up flat to slightly up for the year. So now sounds like slightly down for the year. Is that accurate by recollection? And if it is, is the change -- how much is supply chain related coming out of China with the lockdown? And how much of it is demand related? And then the second part to that is you gave us your view on the market. How are you expecting HP to perform unit-wise this year as well? Thanks. And that’s it for me.

Yeah. So two things. One is, from a unit perspective, we expect this year to see a small decline from where the market was in 2021, but to stay at a very elevated level compared to 2019. In terms of units, we expect the market to be in the 320 million, 330 million units in line with what many of the analysts and other companies have published. From a revenue perspective, though, we expect to see growth. We expect the market to grow in the 3% to 4%, really driven by many of the things we have been discussing today, mix between consumer and commercial and a mixed shift towards more premium units in both segments. And that's really what is driving the growth that we expect to see in Personal Systems through the rest of the year.

Your next question comes from the line of David Vogt with UBS. Your line is open.

Great. Thank you. I have two quick questions, one for Enrique and then a quick follow-up for Marie. So Enrique, you -- both you and your competitors have noted that you're focused on higher-end PCs, including commercial, gaming and high-end consumer as a reason for sustainable growth and better ASPs and mix going forward. But I guess the question I have is the supply chains have started the typical buying pattern and the pricing backdrop how do we know that there is not risk to incremental buyers of PCs coming online when supply normalizes targeting more low-end devices, lower spec PCs give that there might have been some people lining up early in the queue for more richer configurations? And then I have a follow-up for Marie on margins.

Well, I think the demand of both is fairly independent. We -- because of -- as I mentioned before, because of US model in commercial consumer customers need higher and better configurations because of a growth in gaming we see growth in that category, which in general has also higher average selling prices and this is driving the demand of this category. We continue to have a very strong glowing portfolio and if we see more demand on that side, we will be happy to serve it, but at this point, we really see demand on the more premium categories both in commercial and in consumer.

Great. And then a quick follow up from Marie. Marie, thanks for all the color on the margin. Just to follow-up on margin. So you're well above your 16% to 18% range, not only this quarter but in the prior quarter, and then the guide for the third quarter. But if I just sort of analyze the full year guidance, are you intimating that by Q4 of this fiscal year, print margins return back towards the lower end of your long-term range? I'm doing the math correctly and if so is that sort of the way to think about the profitability of that segment going forward that this is sort of a onetime above the range period and that 16% to 18% is more likely the stable environment that we're going to be operating in for the foreseeable future?

Yes. No, David. Good afternoon. So I think the way to think about it for the full year is really that we expect to be at the high-end. As I mentioned a bit earlier, we expect it to be above for Q3 due to the supply chain constraints. But overall, just to kind of give you a little extra context here, we've seen that favorable pricing impact, and we believe the durability around that is there, plus you've seen us very successfully managed through the headwinds in the business, whether that was currency, with commodities, et cetera. And then Enrique talked today about the growth businesses and how we're driving that in terms of just the flow-through factor for a longer-term perspective. So that's the right way to think about our margin construct going forward. It's a combination of all of those factors coming together. But for the year, I really want you to leave with the thought that we're going to be at the high end of 2016 to 2018.

Thank you, Marie, and thank you, everybody, for your questions today and for joining the call. I think the first six months of fiscal year 2022 show that our business continues to perform well and that we are entering the second half from a position of strength. I want to especially highlight the performance that we have had in our growth businesses. As I said at the beginning of the call, they represented $5.6 billion of business, well on track to deliver on the $10 billion goal that we shared with all of you in October. At the same time, we really show this gives us strong confidence as we enter in the second half. This is why we decided to raise our EPS guide for the year to reflect that confidence and we are really well positioned to deliver sustained revenue, operating profit, EPS and free cash flow. So really, thank you for joining today and looking forward to continue to speak to all of you soon. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.