HP INC — Call Transcript 2026

Perfect. Good morning, everyone. I guess before we get started, I got to read the disclosure statement. Today's discussions include forward-looking statements that involve risk, uncertainties, and assumptions which are further described in HP's SEC filings, including HP Form 10-K and 10-Q. HP assumes no obligation and does not intend to update any such forward-looking statements. For more information, please refer to HP's investor relations webpage at investor.hp.com. I did a great job with that. Thank you, Amit. Perfect. Well, good morning, everyone. Thanks a lot for being here. Really delighted to have with us Karen Parkhill, Chief Financial Officer of HP Inc. Going to keep this fairly interactive for the next 40 minutes. If anyone has questions, feel free to raise your hand. I guess maybe just to kick this off, Karen, you folks reported numbers last week. It was a lot better than expected, I think at least from the buy-side perspective or sell-side perspective. The $2.8 billion-$3 billion free cash flow is, at least to me, a standout, but maybe just spend a little bit of time on just recapping earnings and touching on what you folks are embedding and thinking about the back half of the year from a PC demand perspective, and then we'll take it for some more questions from there. Yeah. Perfect. Thanks, Amit. I'm thrilled to be here. Yes, we did have a really strong quarter. We're pleased with the performance there. We did announce earnings significantly better than expected, above our guidance range and with over 20% year-over-year growth. We also raised our guide for the year. Last quarter, at the early stages of the memory cycle, we were prudently pointing to the low end of our range. Now with the strong execution in the second quarter, we believe that we'll be solidly within our range of $290-$310 for the full year. As we think about the inputs to our guide, particularly for the back half in PS, we are aligned with industry experts out there expecting TAM units to be down in the high teens for the rest of the calendar year. Amidst that, we expect to still grow revenue, though at a slightly moderated pace from what you saw this past quarter. Part of that's due to the fact that we believe we had some pull-ins in the quarter. We're focused on, from a margin perspective, we believe we've got continued rising memory and storage and input costs, though at a slightly lesser rate than what we had seen in the second quarter. We're focused on our mitigation playbook against that. We do expect margins to be below our long-term range for the back half in PSG. We did have the benefit in the first half of lower cost of inventory that was working its way in through the P&L. We'll lose that benefit. We are gaining traction on our mitigation playbook, and you saw that in spades in the second quarter. Perfect. I have a bunch of questions I want to ask you about just the back half and margins and everything else, but there's also a fair amount of announcement at Computex with NVIDIA, with Spark, and I think HP announced a couple of laptops are going to come out and desktops. Maybe just spend a minute or two on just what do those announcements entail and what the HP product looks like from that basis. Yeah. We think the announcement yesterday really strengthened our thesis all along that more and more AI is going to be done at the edge. It is safer, more secure, it's a lot cheaper, it doesn't use the tokens that you need for the cloud. It's better for the environment. We just think more and more is going to be done at the edge. NVIDIA's announcement of the Windows platform for AI locally, RTX Spark, is exactly just that. Along with that, we did say that we're going to be introducing laptops, desktops, and workstations that can run this platform locally for customers and coming soon. Perfect. I tried to ask Alex about pricing on that, he says that's a little bit more TBD. We'll wait for that. Pricing is TBD. Karen, if I just go back to the earnings call for a minute. I think one of the things that surprised a lot of folks, one of the questions I got a fair amount was just you folks talked about PSG, the PC side operating margin will kind of trough out in Q4. It should start to improve from there as you go into the next year. Maybe just dig into what sort of visibility or what are you seeing that gives you conviction that margins will trough in Q4 and start to improve? Just talk about the puts and takes around that. Yeah. Part of it is what I already talked about with the benefit of the lower cost of inventory with that tapering off, and continued rising memory costs. Of course, we're working our strong playbook to mitigate. If we can do better, we will. We've been focused on prudently guiding, and we believe at this point that our margins will be below our long-term range for the back half, reaching a trough in Q4 and improving sequentially into FY 2027 from there. What gives us confidence is that our playbook is continuing to take traction, and we'll have the full-year run rate of the actions that we've taken this year to help us next year. We're also continuing to see a higher mix of premium products, particularly AI PCs. We talked about the fact that AI PCs were up from 35% of our shipments the prior quarter to 44% this quarter, and we expect them to be 60%-70% of our shipments as we look ahead into FY 2027. Got it. Maybe spend a bit of time on just the cost mitigation efforts, the playbook that you folks have. What are the different tools that you are focused on to exercise to offset the memory headwinds that we have right now? There's been four pillars to our mitigation efforts on the memory and storage challenges. The first is that we're focused on securing the supply that we need to ensure that we can deliver on the demand that we've got. We feel really confident that we've got that strong supply through both our long-term relationships and the fact that we've got strong relationships with our customers. The second is working to strengthen our operations from the supply chain side all the way to the front line to enable us to align the supply that we've got with the demand that we have and reconfigure devices to shape what the customer really needs. We've been improving our processes to align that better, and we've been introducing new tools to align that better. That started to take a good traction toward the end of last quarter. We expect that to continue. The third is to reduce costs everywhere that we can. We've been driving our AI transformation across the company. We also announced an early retirement program that's friendly to employees last quarter. We saw some traction on that. The fourth is repricing. Clearly, we've been focused on increasing prices to compensate for the remainder of what we can't handle through our other actions. That's taking good traction, too. Got it. Just on the memory side, some companies will come and say, "Hey, we have LTAs in place that give us visibility on this on a fairly extended basis." How do you folks look at LTAs, and how much visibility do you have on components and the pricing that you have to pay for these things? We have these long-term agreements that give us the assurance of the supply and give us confidence that we've got the supply that we need. That gives us the confidence that we have the supply we need for this year, and we're already working on next year. In terms of pricing with those agreements, we focus on locking in the price a quarter in advance so that we at least know how we should be pricing for our customers. We don't want to lock it in so far in advance that we're at a disadvantage when prices stabilize and start to move down. Got it. That'll be a fascinating time when they start to move down at some point. I'd say, I think a lot of the discussions I have, the focus has always been on what's happening with memory, what are the mitigation efforts, how are you folks dealing with it? As you were talking about all these mitigation efforts, a lot of them seem to be structural versus transient, if that's the way to define them. I'm just wondering, to the extent the scenario plays out that memory just flattens out, maybe not even go down, how should we think about the longer-term PSG margins? If some of these initiatives are more structural, then is there a different framework to think about them as you go forward versus what you folks have talked about in the past? You're right, that much of this mitigation is structural, and our goal and focus is to be improving our margins over time. Right now, we've given you the near-term view that we expect them to be under the long-term range in the back half and improve from there into FY 2027. We'll continue to focus on improving them. We're not going to change our long-term range at this point yet, but over time, we're going to focus on continuing to improve. Got it. Then just with customer perspective, price of PCs and other things have gone up pretty dramatically in the last six months. What are you seeing from an enterprise channel partner perspective in terms of their purchasing behavior? I think one of the fears everyone has is things are good so far, but how much of this is really a pull-in versus demand is just better? Yeah. We do recognize that there's some elasticity here, and that's one of the reasons why we're aligned with the industry experts that we expect unit volume to decline. That said, we're very focused on the premium side here, and there is less price sensitivity when you're talking about premium devices, particularly AI PCs, and we're increasing our shipments on that. Yeah. On the competitive side, how is competition stacking up in the PC world right now? I imagine there's an element of maybe some of the smaller companies that are subscale are not playing as much. I'd love to just get us into what the competitive environment looks like on PCs. Yeah. Clearly, we've got some good competitors that we watch closely, and our focus is on gaining share against those competitors. We did gain share in the premium space last quarter, and we intend to regain share overall as we look ahead. Part of that was making sure we worked out the kinks that I talked about of matching our demand and supply and putting in place new processes and tools, which we have in place now. It's a competitive environment, but we believe we're incredibly well-positioned. Yeah. On AI PCs, I'd love to just understand how you folks look at it from HP's perspective. To the extent you see, I think you've talked about, well over a third, I think at this point, of PCs that you ship are AI-enabled. Just talk about what is driving the growth, because I think a lot of times we'll sit back and say, "What is the application that makes you want to go out and do this?" Maybe RTX Spark would be one over time. Just when you hear customers say they want to buy AI PCs, what are the reasons they want to choose it for? Yeah, I would say, a couple years ago when we were talking to CIOs about refreshing their fleet with AI PCs, it was to stay ahead of what is to come. The reality is what is to come is now here and just gaining momentum every day. There are more and more applications being developed to be used at the edge. We've been working with hundreds of ISVs to enable that. You're seeing things like the NVIDIA announcement yesterday. There will be a future where there will be significantly more AI applications done at the edge. We intend to lead there. There will always be a need for cloud. There's a growing need now for AI at the edge at the same time. Got it. Do you find customers that are adopting it are almost more wanting to future-proof their fleet versus actually have use cases today for it? There are use cases today. I'd say two years ago it was future-proofing. Today there are use cases, and they're growing. Some may view it as future-proofing because it is still growing, but there's plenty of use cases today. Is it worth to think, in the past years, folks have talked about, "Hey, AI PCs have a better margin profile than traditional PCs." It's a higher ASP for sure, right? Is that still the case, or is kind of memory inflation changed that equation a little bit? I'd love to just understand margin profile for AI PCs versus the rest of the fleet. It is still the case. AI PCs are premium products. They do carry a higher price, and they do have higher margin. Any framework on how ASPs are on AI PCs versus traditional laptops? That's a nice little tailwind as well that you folks have. You've seen our ASPs increase quite a bit last quarter. We expect that to continue, and part of that is the repricing that we're doing because of the higher input costs, and part of that is the mix shift, to more premium products, which includes AI PCs. Let's shift gears a bit on the print side. Last quarter you guys had 18.2%, 18.3% margins on print. I think the guide sort of said, "Hey, this will go back towards the lower end of the 16%-19% range that you have longer term. Just talk about what's happening on the print margins that's driving the downtick, and how much of that is perhaps a transient thing because of oil issues or Strait of Hormuz being closed versus something else. Just talk about just that margin trajectory on the print side. Yeah, sure. We talked about our print margins being toward the lower end of our long-term range in Q3, and that's really due to three things. First, Q3 is typically our lowest quarter. Less supplies, and typically the lowest quarter. You've got that's not transient. On top of that, we are dealing with a little bit of impact from the Middle East situation and the increased oil prices that we're working to mitigate. That, I would say, is definitely transient. Third, we're focused on taking advantage of opportunities to place long-term profitable units that are a bit of a drag, up front as you place them, but are long-term profitable for us. We're going to be placing more units in Q3 and likely Q4 too. While we said that our margins will be toward the low end of our range in Q3, we expect them to be back solidly in the range in Q4 and solidly in the range for the full year. Got it. Perfect. What's the right way to think about the supplies trajectory as we go forward? It's always been kind of, I think, down low single digits, give or take. I'm curious, what's the right way to think about that model as you go forward? Yeah. We did see supplies roughly flat in the second quarter. That's a lot due to the fact that we had increased pricing due to tariffs last year, and we're seeing the benefit of the couple times that we increased price last year. For this year, we do expect supplies to be down, low single digits. That hasn't changed. As we look longer term for supplies, we do expect, in constant currency, supplies to be down low to mid single digits. Overall in print, we're focused on working to offset that drag for us through a keen focus on increasing subscriptions, which are good recurring revenue. Increasing in industrial and 3D, which you've seen strong double-digit growth over several quarters in those key growth areas. Also, focused on placing some more Big Tank units with profit up front. Perfect. I want to come back to that stuff in a bit. Yep. On the hardware side, right? We've seen hardware units and print decline, I think for several quarters. Yep. You folks obviously are making a statement saying, "Hey, we're going to go after a bit more hardware installations as you go forward." What's driving the decision to change that, in terms of shift of wanting to place more hardware units versus historically? Yeah. I don't know if there's really a shift. We look at opportunities to place the long-term profitable units, and we believe we've got some opportunities in the back half to do that. That's what we're going to be focused on doing. Yeah, it's been a competitive environment in print, and we're going to focus on doing the right placing long-term profitable units, and not just placing units for share's sake. Got it. Karen, the competition in print, especially on the hardware side, has been a lot of the Japanese companies that I think have used the weaker yen to some degree to go after market share. Is that starting to change a little bit as well, which perhaps is giving you a bit more of an entry way to say, we can place incremental hardware units? It's still a competitive environment out there. Our Japanese competitors do still have the benefit of the yen. That said, we're seeing some good trends out there. For example, the office decline that we had seen is improving. Still declining, but declining at a less rate. We're also seeing good, stable usage trends of print out there. We do believe that over time, we'll see more and more refresh happening. Got it. On supplies, you talked about, hey, there are three different growth vectors of things you can focus on, like the Big Tank subscription and then 3D printing and the materials there. As you think of those growthier pieces of the bucket, are those generally margin accretive to your print margins or not? Of those three, which ones maybe is a way to think about how big these opportunities are and which ones are you more focused on right now? Yeah. Subscriptions for example, our all-in subscriptions are a better long-term profitability than traditional unit placement. Those are strong for us. We don't disclose our margins in industrial and 3D, but we like the growth that we've been driving there, and we do think that helps offset. You've seen us operate at the high end of our long-term ranges in print for many quarters. While we're not planning to in the back half, you've seen us do that. Part of that is us continuing to take out structural costs in print and continue to operate as effectively and efficiently as we should. Got it. Subscription, by the way, it grew double digits last quarter in Q1, I think. Was this something unique that helped you drive that kind of growth, or is that sort of the right way to think about the subscription piece at least going as you go forward? Yeah. We've been talking about subscription. We've been placing concerted effort on it, so we're really pleased with the growth we had there. Our subscription revenue was nearly $1 billion at the end of last fiscal year, so it shows you the strength of it. All-in, in particular, we've been marketing just in the U.S., and we're focused on taking that outside the U.S. We've got plenty of opportunity to continue to grow there. One of the things that maybe it's a little bit more back on the PC side has been ability to sell incremental accessories along with the PC sales that you folks have. Poly certainly is a very big asset that you folks have there. Just talk about how is that kind of attach rate working as you go forward? I would imagine it's very reasonable to assume that those incremental accessories, the headsets and everything else, is much better margin than traditional margins are. It's true. Our attach business is higher margin, and it is something that we've been focused on driving even more of, and we've got plenty of opportunity. If you look at our attach rate right now for many of our customers, particularly our enterprise customers, it's low. We've been focused on attacking that. In fact, we've got a program with our sales force that's called Attach Attack, and it drives greater sales incentives for that. We've also changed some of our sales incentives to have our incentives focused not just on revenue dollars but also on gross margin. As we focus our frontline on gross margin too, that incents them to not just focus on the increased price that we need to drive, but also the mixed attach as part of that mix. Is Poly fitted to that as well, or is that attached more around keyboards and displays and all those other things? Poly fits into it too. It all fits into it. Yeah. Is there a space where Poly had this kind of narrative about trying to go after office and make it more video conferencing ready and Huddle Room, I think, was the product that they would have? Is that still a narrative that HP can leverage and focus on, or is Poly more of an on-desk thing? No, absolutely. As we drive what we're calling the future of work, we've been creating HP IQ platforms to enable all of our devices to talk seamlessly to each other, and recognize things like when you walk into a room with your PC, it automatically knows who you are, pulls up your conference call, pulls up the presentation that you need. It makes it very seamless for the worker. Got it. You folks also have this AI-Enabled Savings Program that HP is trying to go after. Just talk about the cost reduction initiatives the company has and how big can this get on a gross on a net basis, and what are the different vectors you're looking at? Yeah. We have been focused on driving some cost savings and transformation through AI enablement across our whole company. We've been seeing good traction on that. Some examples are that in our supply chain, we've been scaling AI agents that enable us to automate order entry and returns. We also have a digital teammate for our channel partners where they can ask questions, they can get guidance on next steps. We've been using AI in our software development area to help boost the productivity of our developers. Those are just three examples. We're working on scaling it quite a lot across the company. That program is intended to drive $1 billion in gross annual run rate savings by its third year by FY 2028. We're well on track there. We're excited about what AI can do for us from a productivity perspective inside HP. Thanks, Karen. Just from my side, how does the AI-enabled savings program differ from the Future Ready? I think those are two different kind of buckets you talk about. Maybe the second part of this is, when I think about $1 billion gross savings, is there a rule of thumb to think about what could be the net on that? Is that more dependent on what does the top line look like? Yeah. It differs from Future Ready. Future Ready was our program prior to this, and Future Ready was before the ability of AI to enable us. That was really a lot focused on driving traditional type cost savings across the company, and we successfully exceeded our expectations on Future Ready. With the advent of AI, it enables us to do so much more, and that's why we've announced this AI-enabled transformation. Your second part of the question? Just the $1 billion of gross savings, is there a rule of thumb to think about? Yep. What does that net look like? Is that more contingent on what top line ends up being? Yep. For all of these savings programs that we've done, they enable us to ensure that we're able to invest for the longer term while still driving a good bottom line. Rule of thumb, I think a lot depends on the kind of headwinds that we're facing that we need to offset and the investment needs that we see ahead. Yeah. Just on free cash flow, right? If I think about the guide for this year of $2.8 billion-$3 billion, it sort of implies that it will do about $1 billion a quarter in Q3, Q4. I think that would be the math, right? It seems to be a nice step up, in fairness, to what you've done in the first half. Some of that is normal. You always have a better back half. Just talking about, what is enabling this kind of step up in free cash flow in the back half? Maybe if I just extend that a bit, how do you think about longer-term free cash flow generation for the company? Yeah. Thanks for the question. We're really pleased to have delivered about $1 billion in free cash flow just in our first half. Seasonally, you're right, our first half is much lower than our back half typically. A lot of that has been driven by the strength of our PSG business, which we expect to continue. That has a negative cash conversion cycle and clearly helps. We've also driven some improvement in our working capital position in the first half. Yes, we're confident about what we intend to deliver in the back half, and that put our guidance-- We increased our guidance along with increasing it on EPS and free cash flow to put us solidly in that $2.8 billion-$3 billion range for the year. Just, Karen, beyond this year, right, what's the way to think about free cash flow generation for the company? You target 90%, 100% of net income. Just talk about longer term, how do you think about free cash flow generation? Yeah. Maybe especially in the context of memory is taking up more working capital as you go forward, I feel. Yep. That said, we are focused on driving continued free cash flow growth. We know it's important for our shareholders. We know earnings are important. We know free cash flow is important, and so we're going to be focused on continuing to improve it from here. Can you spend a minute or two on just capital allocation? How do you folks look at that? What do you think about dividends versus buybacks versus tuck-in or whatever M&A you would look at? Yeah. I would start with just in general, our capital allocation policy has remained the same for a long period of time. For those of you who don't know it's a policy that we intend to return roughly 100% of our free cash flow to our shareholders over time, as long as our leverage remains under 2x and there aren't better ROI opportunities. You've seen us do just that over a long period of time. In fact, just in the first half, we returned roughly $1 billion to shareholders. We generated roughly $1 billion. In terms of dividends and share repurchases, we like them both. What you've seen is us growing our dividend over time. We know that's important to our shareholders. We believe in a growing dividend. Then we like to supplement the share return with share repurchase. Got it. There's been a lot of focus on memory in the last six months, last nine months clearly. One of the things that clearly seems to be happening is there seems to be a wider array of components that are getting to be in short supply or supply chain challenges starting to persist. I was wondering if you're starting to see that as well, where this is not just a memory issue, it's becoming a broader issue. If that's the case, maybe the part I want to go to is, does that put more headwind on working capital as you go forward? Because you perhaps have to allocate dollars not just for memory, but maybe processors power amplifiers and all kinds of different things. We have seen input cost rise in general. Initially, we had higher rise on memory. Right now, we're seeing a higher rise on storage. We had talked about both memory and storage being 35% of our BOM for the year. That was the average for the year, so it will be higher in the back half. That didn't include CPUs. CPUs were obviously included in our outlook too. In general, we're going to be focused on where we have rising costs, making sure that we offset it, again, through our four-pillar mitigation playbook, the last of which is increasing price. Tariffs maybe on the other side seem to become less of a headwind if that's potentially and get rebates potentially down the road. Maybe any perspectives on where tariffs are as a headwind and then how you look at the framework of potentially getting some of those credits back. Yeah. We dealt a decent amount with tariffs last fiscal year. You saw us work to offset that, and should more come our way, we'll be doing the same. Right now, the tariffs have been impacting our print business. They've been roughly about 10%. The administration may announce something in July around tariffs, but whatever that is, we'll be focused on mitigating. In terms of refunds, we're a complex multinational company, and the government isn't yet ready to process refunds for complex companies like us. As soon as they're ready, we'll be applying. Got it. Any update, anything you want to share on just on the Chief Executive Officer search, the timeframe, timeline on that? Yeah. Our board has been actively working on the Chief Executive Officer search. We're not going to give a timeframe. These things always could take longer than you expect anyway. I'd say the board remains focused on finding the right next leader for HP, with a proven track record of leading complex global companies like ourselves. In the meantime, I would say we are not skipping a beat with Bruce at the helm. He has done a fabulous job as Interim Chief Executive Officer. He's just a really terrific, seasoned leader, and we are continuing all momentum under his leadership. Yeah. I'm up on my questions, but maybe I'll turn this back to you. Any closing comments? Anything we did not touch on you want to flag our way? Yeah. You've been at HP a couple of years now. Yeah, just under two years. Just under two years. Yeah. Just love any thoughts from your side on the whole thing. Yeah. HP obviously is the founder of Silicon Valley. We've had our ups and downs over the years. One of the key reasons why I was so excited to join this company is because we're an iconic company in the midst of a significant technology transformation with AI. I think from an investor standpoint, you're just seeing the beginning of this, with our stock price movement just over the last week. I would say we are going to be very focused on leading and driving this AI transformation at the edge, leading and driving the future of work, our future of work strategy. We are investing behind it. We are focused on ensuring that we take HP into its next best era. Perfect. We'll wrap it up with that. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Amit.

Speaker 1: Perfect. Good morning, everyone. I guess before we get started, I got to read the disclosure statement. Today's discussions include forward-looking statements that involve risk, uncertainties, and assumptions which are further described in HP's SEC filings, including HP Form 10-K and 10-Q. HP assumes no obligation and does not intend to update any such forward-looking statements. For more information, please refer to HP's investor relations webpage at investor.hp.com. I did a great job with that. Perfect. perfect Good morning, everyone. good morning everyone I guess before we get started, I got to read the disclosure statement. i guess before we get started i got to read the disclosure statement Today's discussions include forward-looking statements that involve risk, uncertainties, and assumptions which are further described in HP's SEC filings, including HP Form 10-K and 10-Q. today's discussions include forward-looking statements that involve risk uncertainties and assumptions which are further described in hp's sec filings including hp form 10-k and 10-q HP assumes no obligation and does not intend to update any such forward-looking statements. hp assumes no obligation and does not intend to update any such forward-looking statements For more information, please refer to HP's investor relations webpage at investor.hp.com. for more information please refer to hp's investor relations webpage at investor.hp.com I did a great job with that. i did a great job with that

Speaker 2: Thank you, Amit. Thank you, Amit. thank you amit

Speaker 1: Perfect. Well, good morning, everyone. Thanks a lot for being here. Really delighted to have with us Karen Parkhill, Chief Financial Officer of HP Inc. Going to keep this fairly interactive for the next 40 minutes. If anyone has questions, feel free to raise your hand. I guess maybe just to kick this off, Karen, you folks reported numbers last week. It was a lot better than expected, I think at least from the buy-side perspective or sell-side perspective. The $2.8 billion-$3 billion free cash flow is, at least to me, a standout, but maybe just spend a little bit of time on just recapping earnings and touching on what you folks are embedding and thinking about the back half of the year from a PC demand perspective, and then we'll take it for some more questions from there. Perfect. perfect Well, good morning, everyone. well good morning everyone Thanks a lot for being here. thanks a lot for being here Really delighted to have with us Karen Parkhill, Chief Financial Officer of HP Inc. Going to keep this fairly interactive for the next 40 minutes. really delighted to have with us karen parkhill chief financial officer of hp inc going to keep this fairly interactive for the next 40 minutes If anyone has questions, feel free to raise your hand. if anyone has questions feel free to raise your hand I guess maybe just to kick this off, Karen, you folks reported numbers last week. i guess maybe just to kick this off karen you folks reported numbers last week It was a lot better than expected, I think at least from the buy-side perspective or sell-side perspective. it was a lot better than expected i think at least from the buy-side perspective or sell-side perspective The $2.8 billion-$3 billion free cash flow is, at least to me, a standout, but maybe just spend a little bit of time on just recapping earnings and touching on what you folks are embedding and thinking about the back half of the year from a PC demand perspective, and then we'll take it for some more questions from there. the $2.8 billion-$3 billion free cash flow is at least to me a standout but maybe just spend a little bit of time on just recapping earnings and touching on what you folks are embedding and thinking about the back half of the year from a pc demand perspective and then we'll take it for some more questions from there

Speaker 2: Yeah. Perfect. Thanks, Amit. I'm thrilled to be here. Yes, we did have a really strong quarter. We're pleased with the performance there. We did announce earnings significantly better than expected, above our guidance range and with over 20% year-over-year growth. We also raised our guide for the year. Last quarter, at the early stages of the memory cycle, we were prudently pointing to the low end of our range. Now with the strong execution in the second quarter, we believe that we'll be solidly within our range of $290-$310 for the full year. As we think about the inputs to our guide, particularly for the back half in PS, we are aligned with industry experts out there expecting TAM units to be down in the high teens for the rest of the calendar year. Amidst that, we expect to still grow revenue, though at a slightly moderated pace from what you saw this past quarter. Yeah. yeah Perfect. perfect Thanks, Amit. thanks amit I'm thrilled to be here. i'm thrilled to be here Yes, we did have a really strong quarter. yes we did have a really strong quarter We're pleased with the performance there. we're pleased with the performance there We did announce earnings significantly better than expected, above our guidance range and with over 20% year-over-year growth. we did announce earnings significantly better than expected above our guidance range and with over 20% year-over-year growth We also raised our guide for the year. we also raised our guide for the year Last quarter, at the early stages of the memory cycle, we were prudently pointing to the low end of our range. last quarter at the early stages of the memory cycle we were prudently pointing to the low end of our range Now with the strong execution in the second quarter, we believe that we'll be solidly within our range of $290-$310 for the full year. now with the strong execution in the second quarter we believe that we'll be solidly within our range of $290-$310 for the full year As we think about the inputs to our guide, particularly for the back half in PS, we are aligned with industry experts out there expecting TAM units to be down in the high teens for the rest of the calendar year. as we think about the inputs to our guide particularly for the back half in ps we are aligned with industry experts out there expecting tam units to be down in the high teens for the rest of the calendar year Amidst that, we expect to still grow revenue, though at a slightly moderated pace from what you saw this past quarter. amidst that we expect to still grow revenue though at a slightly moderated pace from what you saw this past quarter Part of that's due to the fact that we believe we had some pull-ins in the quarter. We're focused on, from a margin perspective, we believe we've got continued rising memory and storage and input costs, though at a slightly lesser rate than what we had seen in the second quarter. We're focused on our mitigation playbook against that. We do expect margins to be below our long-term range for the back half in PSG. We did have the benefit in the first half of lower cost of inventory that was working its way in through the P&L. We'll lose that benefit. We are gaining traction on our mitigation playbook, and you saw that in spades in the second quarter. Part of that's due to the fact that we believe we had some pull-ins in the quarter. part of that's due to the fact that we believe we had some pull-ins in the quarter We're focused on, from a margin perspective, we believe we've got continued rising memory and storage and input costs, though at a slightly lesser rate than what we had seen in the second quarter. we're focused on from a margin perspective we believe we've got continued rising memory and storage and input costs though at a slightly lesser rate than what we had seen in the second quarter We're focused on our mitigation playbook against that. we're focused on our mitigation playbook against that We do expect margins to be below our long-term range for the back half in PSG. we do expect margins to be below our long-term range for the back half in psg We did have the benefit in the first half of lower cost of inventory that was working its way in through the P&L. we did have the benefit in the first half of lower cost of inventory that was working its way in through the p&l We'll lose that benefit. we'll lose that benefit We are gaining traction on our mitigation playbook, and you saw that in spades in the second quarter. we are gaining traction on our mitigation playbook and you saw that in spades in the second quarter

Speaker 1: Perfect. I have a bunch of questions I want to ask you about just the back half and margins and everything else, but there's also a fair amount of announcement at Computex with NVIDIA, with Spark, and I think HP announced a couple of laptops are going to come out and desktops. Maybe just spend a minute or two on just what do those announcements entail and what the HP product looks like from that basis. Perfect. perfect I have a bunch of questions I want to ask you about just the back half and margins and everything else, but there's also a fair amount of announcement at Computex with NVIDIA, with Spark, and I think HP announced a couple of laptops are going to come out and desktops. i have a bunch of questions i want to ask you about just the back half and margins and everything else but there's also a fair amount of announcement at computex with nvidia with spark and i think hp announced a couple of laptops are going to come out and desktops Maybe just spend a minute or two on just what do those announcements entail and what the HP product looks like from that basis. maybe just spend a minute or two on just what do those announcements entail and what the hp product looks like from that basis

Speaker 2: Yeah. We think the announcement yesterday really strengthened our thesis all along that more and more AI is going to be done at the edge. Yeah. yeah We think the announcement yesterday really strengthened our thesis all along that more and more AI is going to be done at the edge. we think the announcement yesterday really strengthened our thesis all along that more and more ai is going to be done at the edge It is safer, more secure, it's a lot cheaper, it doesn't use the tokens that you need for the cloud. It's better for the environment. We just think more and more is going to be done at the edge. NVIDIA's announcement of the Windows platform for AI locally, RTX Spark, is exactly just that. Along with that, we did say that we're going to be introducing laptops, desktops, and workstations that can run this platform locally for customers and coming soon. It is safer, more secure, it's a lot cheaper, it doesn't use the tokens that you need for the cloud. it is safer more secure it's a lot cheaper it doesn't use the tokens that you need for the cloud It's better for the environment. it's better for the environment We just think more and more is going to be done at the edge. we just think more and more is going to be done at the edge NVIDIA's announcement of the Windows platform for AI locally, RTX Spark, is exactly just that. nvidia's announcement of the windows platform for ai locally rtx spark is exactly just that Along with that, we did say that we're going to be introducing laptops, desktops, and workstations that can run this platform locally for customers and coming soon. along with that we did say that we're going to be introducing laptops desktops and workstations that can run this platform locally for customers and coming soon

Speaker 1: Perfect. I tried to ask Alex about pricing on that, he says that's a little bit more TBD. We'll wait for that. Perfect. perfect I tried to ask Alex about pricing on that, he says that's a little bit more TBD. i tried to ask alex about pricing on that he says that's a little bit more tbd We'll wait for that. we'll wait for that

Speaker 2: Pricing is TBD. Pricing is TBD. pricing is tbd

Speaker 1: Karen, if I just go back to the earnings call for a minute. I think one of the things that surprised a lot of folks, one of the questions I got a fair amount was just you folks talked about PSG, the PC side operating margin will kind of trough out in Q4. It should start to improve from there as you go into the next year. Maybe just dig into what sort of visibility or what are you seeing that gives you conviction that margins will trough in Q4 and start to improve? Just talk about the puts and takes around that. Karen, if I just go back to the earnings call for a minute. karen if i just go back to the earnings call for a minute I think one of the things that surprised a lot of folks, one of the questions I got a fair amount was just you folks talked about PSG, the PC side operating margin will kind of trough out in Q4. i think one of the things that surprised a lot of folks one of the questions i got a fair amount was just you folks talked about psg the pc side operating margin will kind of trough out in q4 It should start to improve from there as you go into the next year. it should start to improve from there as you go into the next year Maybe just dig into what sort of visibility or what are you seeing that gives you conviction that margins will trough in Q4 and start to improve? maybe just dig into what sort of visibility or what are you seeing that gives you conviction that margins will trough in q4 and start to improve Just talk about the puts and takes around that. just talk about the puts and takes around that

Speaker 2: Yeah. Part of it is what I already talked about with the benefit of the lower cost of inventory with that tapering off, and continued rising memory costs. Of course, we're working our strong playbook to mitigate. If we can do better, we will. We've been focused on prudently guiding, and we believe at this point that our margins will be below our long-term range for the back half, reaching a trough in Q4 and improving sequentially into FY 2027 from there. What gives us confidence is that our playbook is continuing to take traction, and we'll have the full-year run rate of the actions that we've taken this year to help us next year. We're also continuing to see a higher mix of premium products, particularly AI PCs. We talked about the fact that AI PCs were up from 35% of our shipments the prior quarter to 44% this quarter, and we expect them to be 60%-70% of our shipments as we look ahead into FY 2027. Yeah. yeah Part of it is what I already talked about with the benefit of the lower cost of inventory with that tapering off, and continued rising memory costs. part of it is what i already talked about with the benefit of the lower cost of inventory with that tapering off and continued rising memory costs Of course, we're working our strong playbook to mitigate. of course we're working our strong playbook to mitigate If we can do better, we will. if we can do better we will We've been focused on prudently guiding, and we believe at this point that our margins will be below our long-term range for the back half, reaching a trough in Q4 and improving sequentially into FY 2027 from there. we've been focused on prudently guiding and we believe at this point that our margins will be below our long-term range for the back half reaching a trough in q4 and improving sequentially into fy 2027 from there What gives us confidence is that our playbook is continuing to take traction, and we'll have the full-year run rate of the actions that we've taken this year to help us next year. what gives us confidence is that our playbook is continuing to take traction and we'll have the full-year run rate of the actions that we've taken this year to help us next year We're also continuing to see a higher mix of premium products, particularly AI PCs. we're also continuing to see a higher mix of premium products particularly ai pcs We talked about the fact that AI PCs were up from 35% of our shipments the prior quarter to 44% this quarter, and we expect them to be 60%-70% of our shipments as we look ahead into FY 2027. we talked about the fact that ai pcs were up from 35% of our shipments the prior quarter to 44% this quarter and we expect them to be 60%-70% of our shipments as we look ahead into fy 2027

Speaker 1: Got it. Maybe spend a bit of time on just the cost mitigation efforts, the playbook that you folks have. What are the different tools that you are focused on to exercise to offset the memory headwinds that we have right now? Got it. got it Maybe spend a bit of time on just the cost mitigation efforts, the playbook that you folks have. maybe spend a bit of time on just the cost mitigation efforts the playbook that you folks have What are the different tools that you are focused on to exercise to offset the memory headwinds that we have right now? what are the different tools that you are focused on to exercise to offset the memory headwinds that we have right now

Speaker 2: There's been four pillars to our mitigation efforts on the memory and storage challenges. The first is that we're focused on securing the supply that we need to ensure that we can deliver on the demand that we've got. We feel really confident that we've got that strong supply through both our long-term relationships and the fact that we've got strong relationships with our customers. The second is working to strengthen our operations from the supply chain side all the way to the front line to enable us to align the supply that we've got with the demand that we have and reconfigure devices to shape what the customer really needs. We've been improving our processes to align that better, and we've been introducing new tools to align that better. That started to take a good traction toward the end of last quarter. We expect that to continue. The third is to reduce costs everywhere that we can. We've been driving our AI transformation across the company. We also announced an early retirement program that's friendly to employees last quarter. We saw some traction on that. The fourth is repricing. Clearly, we've been focused on increasing prices to compensate for the remainder of what we can't handle through our other actions. That's taking good traction, too. There's been four pillars to our mitigation efforts on the memory and storage challenges. there's been four pillars to our mitigation efforts on the memory and storage challenges The first is that we're focused on securing the supply that we need to ensure that we can deliver on the demand that we've got. the first is that we're focused on securing the supply that we need to ensure that we can deliver on the demand that we've got We feel really confident that we've got that strong supply through both our long-term relationships and the fact that we've got strong relationships with our customers. we feel really confident that we've got that strong supply through both our long-term relationships and the fact that we've got strong relationships with our customers The second is working to strengthen our operations from the supply chain side all the way to the front line to enable us to align the supply that we've got with the demand that we have and reconfigure devices to shape what the customer really needs. the second is working to strengthen our operations from the supply chain side all the way to the front line to enable us to align the supply that we've got with the demand that we have and reconfigure devices to shape what the customer really needs We've been improving our processes to align that better, and we've been introducing new tools to align that better. we've been improving our processes to align that better and we've been introducing new tools to align that better That started to take a good traction toward the end of last quarter. W e expect that to continue. that started to take a good traction toward the end of last quarter. w e expect that to continue The third is to reduce costs everywhere that we can. the third is to reduce costs everywhere that we can We've been driving our AI transformation across the company. we've been driving our ai transformation across the company We also announced an early retirement program that's friendly to employees last quarter. we also announced an early retirement program that's friendly to employees last quarter We saw some traction on that. we saw some traction on that The fourth is repricing. the fourth is repricing Clearly, we've been focused on increasing prices to compensate for the remainder of what we can't handle through our other actions. clearly we've been focused on increasing prices to compensate for the remainder of what we can't handle through our other actions That's taking good traction, too. that's taking good traction too

Speaker 1: Got it. Just on the memory side, some companies will come and say, "Hey, we have LTAs in place that give us visibility on this on a fairly extended basis." How do you folks look at LTAs, and how much visibility do you have on components and the pricing that you have to pay for these things? Got it. got it Just on the memory side, some companies will come and say, "Hey, we have LTAs in place that give us visibility on this on a fairly extended basis." How do you folks look at LTAs, and how much visibility do you have on components and the pricing that you have to pay for these things? just on the memory side some companies will come and say "hey we have ltas in place that give us visibility on this on a fairly extended basis." how do you folks look at ltas and how much visibility do you have on components and the pricing that you have to pay for these things

Speaker 2: We have these long-term agreements that give us the assurance of the supply and give us confidence that we've got the supply that we need. That gives us the confidence that we have the supply we need for this year, and we're already working on next year. In terms of pricing with those agreements, we focus on locking in the price a quarter in advance so that we at least know how we should be pricing for our customers. We don't want to lock it in so far in advance that we're at a disadvantage when prices stabilize and start to move down. We have these long-term agreements that give us the assurance of the supply and give us confidence that we've got the supply that we need. we have these long-term agreements that give us the assurance of the supply and give us confidence that we've got the supply that we need That gives us the confidence that we have the supply we need for this year, and we're already working on next year. that gives us the confidence that we have the supply we need for this year and we're already working on next year In terms of pricing with those agreements, we focus on locking in the price a quarter in advance so that we at least know how we should be pricing for our customers. in terms of pricing with those agreements we focus on locking in the price a quarter in advance so that we at least know how we should be pricing for our customers We don't want to lock it in so far in advance that we're at a disadvantage when prices stabilize and start to move down. we don't want to lock it in so far in advance that we're at a disadvantage when prices stabilize and start to move down

Speaker 1: Got it. That'll be a fascinating time when they start to move down at some point. I'd say, I think a lot of the discussions I have, the focus has always been on what's happening with memory, what are the mitigation efforts, how are you folks dealing with it? As you were talking about all these mitigation efforts, a lot of them seem to be structural versus transient, if that's the way to define them. I'm just wondering, to the extent the scenario plays out that memory just flattens out, maybe not even go down, how should we think about the longer-term PSG margins? If some of these initiatives are more structural, then is there a different framework to think about them as you go forward versus what you folks have talked about in the past? Got it. got it That'll be a fascinating time when they start to move down at some point. that'll be a fascinating time when they start to move down at some point I'd say, I think a lot of the discussions I have, the focus has always been on what's happening with memory, what are the mitigation efforts, how are you folks dealing with it? i'd say i think a lot of the discussions i have the focus has always been on what's happening with memory what are the mitigation efforts how are you folks dealing with it As you were talking about all these mitigation efforts, a lot of them seem to be structural versus transient, if that's the way to define them. as you were talking about all these mitigation efforts a lot of them seem to be structural versus transient if that's the way to define them I'm just wondering, to the extent the scenario plays out that memory just flattens out, maybe not even go down, how should we think about the longer-term PSG margins? i'm just wondering to the extent the scenario plays out that memory just flattens out maybe not even go down how should we think about the longer-term psg margins If some of these initiatives are more structural, then is there a different framework to think about them as you go forward versus what you folks have talked about in the past? if some of these initiatives are more structural then is there a different framework to think about them as you go forward versus what you folks have talked about in the past

Speaker 2: You're right, that much of this mitigation is structural, and our goal and focus is to be improving our margins over time. Right now, we've given you the near-term view that we expect them to be under the long-term range in the back half and improve from there into FY 2027. We'll continue to focus on improving them. We're not going to change our long-term range at this point yet, but over time, we're going to focus on continuing to improve. You're right, that much of this mitigation is structural, and our goal and focus is to be improving our margins over time. you're right that much of this mitigation is structural and our goal and focus is to be improving our margins over time Right now, we've given you the near-term view that we expect them to be under the long-term range in the back half and improve from there into FY 2027. right now we've given you the near-term view that we expect them to be under the long-term range in the back half and improve from there into fy 2027 We'll continue to focus on improving them. we'll continue to focus on improving them We're not going to change our long-term range at this point yet, but over time, we're going to focus on continuing to improve. we're not going to change our long-term range at this point yet but over time we're going to focus on continuing to improve

Speaker 1: Got it. Then just with customer perspective, price of PCs and other things have gone up pretty dramatically in the last six months. What are you seeing from an enterprise channel partner perspective in terms of their purchasing behavior? I think one of the fears everyone has is things are good so far, but how much of this is really a pull-in versus demand is just better? Got it. got it Then just with customer perspective, price of PCs and other things have gone up pretty dramatically in the last six months. then just with customer perspective price of pcs and other things have gone up pretty dramatically in the last six months What are you seeing from an enterprise channel partner perspective in terms of their purchasing behavior? what are you seeing from an enterprise channel partner perspective in terms of their purchasing behavior I think one of the fears everyone has is things are good so far, but how much of this is really a pull-in versus demand is just better? i think one of the fears everyone has is things are good so far but how much of this is really a pull-in versus demand is just better

Speaker 2: Yeah. We do recognize that there's some elasticity here, and that's one of the reasons why we're aligned with the industry experts that we expect unit volume to decline. That said, we're very focused on the premium side here, and there is less price sensitivity when you're talking about premium devices, particularly AI PCs, and we're increasing our shipments on that. Yeah. yeah We do recognize that there's some elasticity here, and that's one of the reasons why we're aligned with the industry experts that we expect unit volume to decline. we do recognize that there's some elasticity here and that's one of the reasons why we're aligned with the industry experts that we expect unit volume to decline That said, we're very focused on the premium side here, and there is less price sensitivity when you're talking about premium devices, particularly AI PCs, and we're increasing our shipments on that. that said we're very focused on the premium side here and there is less price sensitivity when you're talking about premium devices particularly ai pcs and we're increasing our shipments on that

Speaker 1: Yeah. On the competitive side, how is competition stacking up in the PC world right now? I imagine there's an element of maybe some of the smaller companies that are subscale are not playing as much. I'd love to just get us into what the competitive environment looks like on PCs. Yeah. yeah On the competitive side, how is competition stacking up in the PC world right now? on the competitive side how is competition stacking up in the pc world right now I imagine there's an element of maybe some of the smaller companies that are subscale are not playing as much. i imagine there's an element of maybe some of the smaller companies that are subscale are not playing as much I'd love to just get us into what the competitive environment looks like on PCs. i'd love to just get us into what the competitive environment looks like on pcs

Speaker 2: Yeah. Clearly, we've got some good competitors that we watch closely, and our focus is on gaining share against those competitors. We did gain share in the premium space last quarter, and we intend to regain share overall as we look ahead. Part of that was making sure we worked out the kinks that I talked about of matching our demand and supply and putting in place new processes and tools, which we have in place now. It's a competitive environment, but we believe we're incredibly well-positioned. Yeah. yeah Clearly, we've got some good competitors that we watch closely, and our focus is on gaining share against those competitors. clearly we've got some good competitors that we watch closely and our focus is on gaining share against those competitors We did gain share in the premium space last quarter, and we intend to regain share overall as we look ahead. we did gain share in the premium space last quarter and we intend to regain share overall as we look ahead Part of that was making sure we worked out the kinks that I talked about of matching our demand and supply and putting in place new processes and tools, which we have in place now. part of that was making sure we worked out the kinks that i talked about of matching our demand and supply and putting in place new processes and tools which we have in place now It's a competitive environment, but we believe we're incredibly well-positioned. it's a competitive environment but we believe we're incredibly well-positioned

Speaker 1: Yeah. On AI PCs, I'd love to just understand how you folks look at it from HP's perspective. To the extent you see, I think you've talked about, well over a third, I think at this point, of PCs that you ship are AI-enabled. Just talk about what is driving the growth, because I think a lot of times we'll sit back and say, "What is the application that makes you want to go out and do this?" Maybe RTX Spark would be one over time. Just when you hear customers say they want to buy AI PCs, what are the reasons they want to choose it for? Yeah. yeah On AI PCs, I'd love to just understand how you folks look at it from HP's perspective. on ai pcs i'd love to just understand how you folks look at it from hp's perspective To the extent you see, I think you've talked about, well over a third, I think at this point, of PCs that you ship are AI-enabled. to the extent you see i think you've talked about well over a third i think at this point of pcs that you ship are ai-enabled Just talk about what is driving the growth, because I think a lot of times we'll sit back and say, "What is the application that makes you want to go out and do this?" Maybe RTX Spark would be one over time. just talk about what is driving the growth because i think a lot of times we'll sit back and say "what is the application that makes you want to go out and do this?" maybe rtx spark would be one over time Just when you hear customers say they want to buy AI PCs, what are the reasons they want to choose it for? just when you hear customers say they want to buy ai pcs what are the reasons they want to choose it for

Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say, a couple years ago when we were talking to CIOs about refreshing their fleet with AI PCs, it was to stay ahead of what is to come. The reality is what is to come is now here and just gaining momentum every day. There are more and more applications being developed to be used at the edge. We've been working with hundreds of ISVs to enable that. You're seeing things like the NVIDIA announcement yesterday. There will be a future where there will be significantly more AI applications done at the edge. We intend to lead there. There will always be a need for cloud. There's a growing need now for AI at the edge at the same time. Yeah, I would say, a couple years ago when we were talking to CIOs about refreshing their fleet with AI PCs, it was to stay ahead of what is to come. yeah i would say a couple years ago when we were talking to cios about refreshing their fleet with ai pcs it was to stay ahead of what is to come The reality is what is to come is now here and just gaining momentum every day. the reality is what is to come is now here and just gaining momentum every day There are more and more applications being developed to be used at the edge. there are more and more applications being developed to be used at the edge We've been working with hundreds of ISVs to enable that. we've been working with hundreds of isvs to enable that You're seeing things like the NVIDIA announcement yesterday. you're seeing things like the nvidia announcement yesterday There will be a future where there will be significantly more AI applications done at the edge. there will be a future where there will be significantly more ai applications done at the edge We intend to lead there. we intend to lead there There will always be a need for cloud. there will always be a need for cloud There's a growing need now for AI at the edge at the same time. there's a growing need now for ai at the edge at the same time

Speaker 1: Got it. Do you find customers that are adopting it are almost more wanting to future-proof their fleet versus actually have use cases today for it? Got it. got it Do you find customers that are adopting it are almost more wanting to future-proof their fleet versus actually have use cases today for it? do you find customers that are adopting it are almost more wanting to future-proof their fleet versus actually have use cases today for it

Speaker 2: There are use cases today. I'd say two years ago it was future-proofing. Today there are use cases, and they're growing. Some may view it as future-proofing because it is still growing, but there's plenty of use cases today. There are use cases today. there are use cases today I'd say two years ago it was future-proofing. i'd say two years ago it was future-proofing Today there are use cases, and they're growing. today there are use cases and they're growing Some may view it as future-proofing because it is still growing, but there's plenty of use cases today. some may view it as future-proofing because it is still growing but there's plenty of use cases today

Speaker 1: Is it worth to think, in the past years, folks have talked about, "Hey, AI PCs have a better margin profile than traditional PCs." It's a higher ASP for sure, right? Is that still the case, or is kind of memory inflation changed that equation a little bit? I'd love to just understand margin profile for AI PCs versus the rest of the fleet. Is it worth to think, in the past years, folks have talked about, "Hey, AI PCs have a better margin profile than traditional PCs." It's a higher ASP for sure, right? is it worth to think in the past years folks have talked about "hey ai pcs have a better margin profile than traditional pcs." it's a higher asp for sure right Is that still the case, or is kind of memory inflation changed that equation a little bit? is that still the case or is kind of memory inflation changed that equation a little bit I'd love to just understand margin profile for AI PCs versus the rest of the fleet. i'd love to just understand margin profile for ai pcs versus the rest of the fleet

Speaker 2: It is still the case. AI PCs are premium products. They do carry a higher price, and they do have higher margin. It is still the case. it is still the case AI PCs are premium products. ai pcs are premium products They do carry a higher price, and they do have higher margin. they do carry a higher price and they do have higher margin

Speaker 1: Any framework on how ASPs are on AI PCs versus traditional laptops? That's a nice little tailwind as well that you folks have. Any framework on how ASPs are on AI PCs versus traditional laptops? any framework on how asps are on ai pcs versus traditional laptops That's a nice little tailwind as well that you folks have. that's a nice little tailwind as well that you folks have

Speaker 2: You've seen our ASPs increase quite a bit last quarter. We expect that to continue, and part of that is the repricing that we're doing because of the higher input costs, and part of that is the mix shift, to more premium products, which includes AI PCs. You've seen our ASPs increase quite a bit last quarter. you've seen our asps increase quite a bit last quarter We expect that to continue, and part of that is the repricing that we're doing because of the higher input costs, and part of that is the mix shift, to more premium products, which includes AI PCs. we expect that to continue and part of that is the repricing that we're doing because of the higher input costs and part of that is the mix shift to more premium products which includes ai pcs

Speaker 1: Let's shift gears a bit on the print side. Last quarter you guys had 18.2%, 18.3% margins on print. I think the guide sort of said, "Hey, this will go back towards the lower end of the 16%-19% range that you have longer term. Just talk about what's happening on the print margins that's driving the downtick, and how much of that is perhaps a transient thing because of oil issues or Strait of Hormuz being closed versus something else. Just talk about just that margin trajectory on the print side. Let's shift gears a bit on the print side. let's shift gears a bit on the print side Last quarter you guys had 18.2%, 18.3% margins on print. last quarter you guys had 18.2% 18.3% margins on print I think the guide sort of said, "Hey, this will go back towards the lower end of the 16%-19% range that you have longer term. i think the guide sort of said "hey this will go back towards the lower end of the 16%-19% range that you have longer term Just talk about what's happening on the print margins that's driving the downtick, and how much of that is perhaps a transient thing because of oil issues or Strait of Hormuz being closed versus something else. just talk about what's happening on the print margins that's driving the downtick and how much of that is perhaps a transient thing because of oil issues or strait of hormuz being closed versus something else Just talk about just that margin trajectory on the print side. just talk about just that margin trajectory on the print side

Speaker 2: Yeah, sure. We talked about our print margins being toward the lower end of our long-term range in Q3, and that's really due to three things. First, Q3 is typically our lowest quarter. Less supplies, and typically the lowest quarter. You've got that's not transient. On top of that, we are dealing with a little bit of impact from the Middle East situation and the increased oil prices that we're working to mitigate. That, I would say, is definitely transient. Third, we're focused on taking advantage of opportunities to place long-term profitable units that are a bit of a drag, up front as you place them, but are long-term profitable for us. We're going to be placing more units in Q3 and likely Q4 too. While we said that our margins will be toward the low end of our range in Q3, we expect them to be back solidly in the range in Q4 and solidly in the range for the full year. Yeah, sure. yeah sure We talked about our print margins being toward the lower end of our long-term range in Q3, and that's really due to three things. we talked about our print margins being toward the lower end of our long-term range in q3 and that's really due to three things First, Q3 is typically our lowest quarter. first q3 is typically our lowest quarter Less supplies, and typically the lowest quarter. less supplies and typically the lowest quarter You've got that's not transient. you've got that's not transient On top of that, we are dealing with a little bit of impact from the Middle East situation and the increased oil prices that we're working to mitigate. on top of that we are dealing with a little bit of impact from the middle east situation and the increased oil prices that we're working to mitigate That, I would say, is definitely transient. that i would say is definitely transient Third, we're focused on taking advantage of opportunities to place long-term profitable units that are a bit of a drag, up front as you place them, but are long-term profitable for us. third we're focused on taking advantage of opportunities to place long-term profitable units that are a bit of a drag up front as you place them but are long-term profitable for us We're going to be placing more units in Q3 and likely Q4 too. we're going to be placing more units in q3 and likely q4 too While we said that our margins will be toward the low end of our range in Q3, we expect them to be back solidly in the range in Q4 and solidly in the range for the full year. while we said that our margins will be toward the low end of our range in q3 we expect them to be back solidly in the range in q4 and solidly in the range for the full year

Speaker 1: Got it. Perfect. What's the right way to think about the supplies trajectory as we go forward? It's always been kind of, I think, down low single digits, give or take. I'm curious, what's the right way to think about that model as you go forward? Got it. got it Perfect. perfect What's the right way to think about the supplies trajectory as we go forward? what's the right way to think about the supplies trajectory as we go forward It's always been kind of, I think, down low single digits, give or take. it's always been kind of i think down low single digits give or take I'm curious, what's the right way to think about that model as you go forward? i'm curious what's the right way to think about that model as you go forward

Speaker 2: Yeah. We did see supplies roughly flat in the second quarter. That's a lot due to the fact that we had increased pricing due to tariffs last year, and we're seeing the benefit of the couple times that we increased price last year. For this year, we do expect supplies to be down, low single digits. That hasn't changed. As we look longer term for supplies, we do expect, in constant currency, supplies to be down low to mid single digits. Overall in print, we're focused on working to offset that drag for us through a keen focus on increasing subscriptions, which are good recurring revenue. Increasing in industrial and 3D, which you've seen strong double-digit growth over several quarters in those key growth areas. Also, focused on placing some more Big Tank units with profit up front. Yeah. yeah We did see supplies roughly flat in the second quarter. we did see supplies roughly flat in the second quarter That's a lot due to the fact that we had increased pricing due to tariffs last year, and we're seeing the benefit of the couple times that we increased price last year. that's a lot due to the fact that we had increased pricing due to tariffs last year and we're seeing the benefit of the couple times that we increased price last year For this year, we do expect supplies to be down, low single digits. for this year we do expect supplies to be down low single digits That hasn't changed. that hasn't changed As we look longer term for supplies, we do expect, in constant currency, supplies to be down low to mid single digits. as we look longer term for supplies we do expect in constant currency supplies to be down low to mid single digits Overall in print, we're focused on working to offset that drag for us through a keen focus on increasing subscriptions, which are good recurring revenue. overall in print we're focused on working to offset that drag for us through a keen focus on increasing subscriptions which are good recurring revenue Increasing in industrial and 3D, which you've seen strong double-digit growth over several quarters in those key growth areas. increasing in industrial and 3d which you've seen strong double-digit growth over several quarters in those key growth areas Also, focused on placing some more Big Tank units with profit up front. also focused on placing some more big tank units with profit up front

Speaker 1: Perfect. I want to come back to that stuff in a bit. Perfect. perfect I want to come back to that stuff in a bit. i want to come back to that stuff in a bit

Speaker 2: Yep. Yep. yep

Speaker 1: On the hardware side, right? We've seen hardware units and print decline, I think for several quarters. On the hardware side, right? on the hardware side right We've seen hardware units and print decline, I think for several quarters. we've seen hardware units and print decline i think for several quarters

Speaker 2: Yep. Yep. yep

Speaker 1: You folks obviously are making a statement saying, "Hey, we're going to go after a bit more hardware installations as you go forward." What's driving the decision to change that, in terms of shift of wanting to place more hardware units versus historically? You folks obviously are making a statement saying, "Hey, we're going to go after a bit more hardware installations as you go forward." What's driving the decision to change that, in terms of shift of wanting to place more hardware units versus historically? you folks obviously are making a statement saying "hey we're going to go after a bit more hardware installations as you go forward." what's driving the decision to change that in terms of shift of wanting to place more hardware units versus historically

Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know if there's really a shift. We look at opportunities to place the long-term profitable units, and we believe we've got some opportunities in the back half to do that. That's what we're going to be focused on doing. Yeah, it's been a competitive environment in print, and we're going to focus on doing the right placing long-term profitable units, and not just placing units for share's sake. Yeah. yeah I don't know if there's really a shift. i don't know if there's really a shift We look at opportunities to place the long-term profitable units, and we believe we've got some opportunities in the back half to do that. we look at opportunities to place the long-term profitable units and we believe we've got some opportunities in the back half to do that That's what we're going to be focused on doing. that's what we're going to be focused on doing Yeah, it's been a competitive environment in print, and we're going to focus on doing the right placing long-term profitable units, and not just placing units for share's sake. yeah it's been a competitive environment in print and we're going to focus on doing the right placing long-term profitable units and not just placing units for share's sake

Speaker 1: Got it. Karen, the competition in print, especially on the hardware side, has been a lot of the Japanese companies that I think have used the weaker yen to some degree to go after market share. Is that starting to change a little bit as well, which perhaps is giving you a bit more of an entry way to say, we can place incremental hardware units? Got it. got it Karen, the competition in print, especially on the hardware side, has been a lot of the Japanese companies that I think have used the weaker yen to some degree to go after market share. karen the competition in print especially on the hardware side has been a lot of the japanese companies that i think have used the weaker yen to some degree to go after market share Is that starting to change a little bit as well, which perhaps is giving you a bit more of an entry way to say, we can place incremental hardware units? is that starting to change a little bit as well which perhaps is giving you a bit more of an entry way to say we can place incremental hardware units

Speaker 2: It's still a competitive environment out there. Our Japanese competitors do still have the benefit of the yen. That said, we're seeing some good trends out there. For example, the office decline that we had seen is improving. Still declining, but declining at a less rate. We're also seeing good, stable usage trends of print out there. We do believe that over time, we'll see more and more refresh happening. It's still a competitive environment out there. it's still a competitive environment out there Our Japanese competitors do still have the benefit of the yen. our japanese competitors do still have the benefit of the yen That said, we're seeing some good trends out there. that said we're seeing some good trends out there For example, the office decline that we had seen is improving. for example the office decline that we had seen is improving Still declining, but declining at a less rate. still declining but declining at a less rate We're also seeing good, stable usage trends of print out there. we're also seeing good stable usage trends of print out there We do believe that over time, we'll see more and more refresh happening. we do believe that over time we'll see more and more refresh happening

Speaker 1: Got it. On supplies, you talked about, hey, there are three different growth vectors of things you can focus on, like the Big Tank subscription and then 3D printing and the materials there. As you think of those growthier pieces of the bucket, are those generally margin accretive to your print margins or not? Of those three, which ones maybe is a way to think about how big these opportunities are and which ones are you more focused on right now? Got it. got it On supplies, you talked about, hey, there are three different growth vectors of things you can focus on, like the Big Tank subscription and then 3D printing and the materials there. on supplies you talked about hey there are three different growth vectors of things you can focus on like the big tank subscription and then 3d printing and the materials there As you think of those growthier pieces of the bucket, are those generally margin accretive to your print margins or not? as you think of those growthier pieces of the bucket are those generally margin accretive to your print margins or not Of those three, which ones maybe is a way to think about how big these opportunities are and which ones are you more focused on right now? of those three which ones maybe is a way to think about how big these opportunities are and which ones are you more focused on right now

Speaker 2: Yeah. Subscriptions for example, our all-in subscriptions are a better long-term profitability than traditional unit placement. Those are strong for us. We don't disclose our margins in industrial and 3D, but we like the growth that we've been driving there, and we do think that helps offset. You've seen us operate at the high end of our long-term ranges in print for many quarters. While we're not planning to in the back half, you've seen us do that. Part of that is us continuing to take out structural costs in print and continue to operate as effectively and efficiently as we should. Yeah. yeah Subscriptions for example, our all-in subscriptions are a better long-term profitability than traditional unit placement. subscriptions for example our all-in subscriptions are a better long-term profitability than traditional unit placement Those are strong for us. those are strong for us We don't disclose our margins in industrial and 3D, but we like the growth that we've been driving there, and we do think that helps offset. we don't disclose our margins in industrial and 3d but we like the growth that we've been driving there and we do think that helps offset You've seen us operate at the high end of our long-term ranges in print for many quarters. you've seen us operate at the high end of our long-term ranges in print for many quarters While we're not planning to in the back half, you've seen us do that. while we're not planning to in the back half you've seen us do that Part of that is us continuing to take out structural costs in print and continue to operate as effectively and efficiently as we should. part of that is us continuing to take out structural costs in print and continue to operate as effectively and efficiently as we should

Speaker 1: Got it. Subscription, by the way, it grew double digits last quarter in Q1, I think. Was this something unique that helped you drive that kind of growth, or is that sort of the right way to think about the subscription piece at least going as you go forward? Got it. got it Subscription, by the way, it grew double digits last quarter in Q1, I think. subscription by the way it grew double digits last quarter in q1 i think Was this something unique that helped you drive that kind of growth, or is that sort of the right way to think about the subscription piece at least going as you go forward? was this something unique that helped you drive that kind of growth or is that sort of the right way to think about the subscription piece at least going as you go forward

Speaker 2: Yeah. We've been talking about subscription. We've been placing concerted effort on it, so we're really pleased with the growth we had there. Our subscription revenue was nearly $1 billion at the end of last fiscal year, so it shows you the strength of it. All-in, in particular, we've been marketing just in the U.S., and we're focused on taking that outside the U.S. We've got plenty of opportunity to continue to grow there. Yeah. yeah We've been talking about subscription. we've been talking about subscription We've been placing concerted effort on it, so we're really pleased with the growth we had there. we've been placing concerted effort on it so we're really pleased with the growth we had there Our subscription revenue was nearly $1 billion at the end of last fiscal year, so it shows you the strength of it. our subscription revenue was nearly $1 billion at the end of last fiscal year so it shows you the strength of it All-in, in particular, we've been marketing just in the U.S., and we're focused on taking that outside the U.S. all-in in particular we've been marketing just in the u.s and we're focused on taking that outside the u.s We've got plenty of opportunity to continue to grow there. we've got plenty of opportunity to continue to grow there

Speaker 1: One of the things that maybe it's a little bit more back on the PC side has been ability to sell incremental accessories along with the PC sales that you folks have. Poly certainly is a very big asset that you folks have there. Just talk about how is that kind of attach rate working as you go forward? I would imagine it's very reasonable to assume that those incremental accessories, the headsets and everything else, is much better margin than traditional margins are. One of the things that maybe it's a little bit more back on the PC side has been ability to sell incremental accessories along with the PC sales that you folks have. one of the things that maybe it's a little bit more back on the pc side has been ability to sell incremental accessories along with the pc sales that you folks have Poly certainly is a very big asset that you folks have there. poly certainly is a very big asset that you folks have there Just talk about how is that kind of attach rate working as you go forward? just talk about how is that kind of attach rate working as you go forward I would imagine it's very reasonable to assume that those incremental accessories, the headsets and everything else, is much better margin than traditional margins are. i would imagine it's very reasonable to assume that those incremental accessories the headsets and everything else is much better margin than traditional margins are

Speaker 2: It's true. Our attach business is higher margin, and it is something that we've been focused on driving even more of, and we've got plenty of opportunity. If you look at our attach rate right now for many of our customers, particularly our enterprise customers, it's low. We've been focused on attacking that. In fact, we've got a program with our sales force that's called Attach Attack, and it drives greater sales incentives for that. We've also changed some of our sales incentives to have our incentives focused not just on revenue dollars but also on gross margin. As we focus our frontline on gross margin too, that incents them to not just focus on the increased price that we need to drive, but also the mixed attach as part of that mix. It's true. it's true Our attach business is higher margin, and it is something that we've been focused on driving even more of, and we've got plenty of opportunity. our attach business is higher margin and it is something that we've been focused on driving even more of and we've got plenty of opportunity If you look at our attach rate right now for many of our customers, particularly our enterprise customers, it's low. if you look at our attach rate right now for many of our customers particularly our enterprise customers it's low We've been focused on attacking that. we've been focused on attacking that In fact, we've got a program with our sales force that's called Attach Attack, and it drives greater sales incentives for that. in fact we've got a program with our sales force that's called attach attack and it drives greater sales incentives for that We've also changed some of our sales incentives to have our incentives focused not just on revenue dollars but also on gross margin. we've also changed some of our sales incentives to have our incentives focused not just on revenue dollars but also on gross margin As we focus our frontline on gross margin too, that incents them to not just focus on the increased price that we need to drive, but also the mixed a ttach as part of that mix. as we focus our frontline on gross margin too that incents them to not just focus on the increased price that we need to drive but also the mixed a ttach as part of that mix

Speaker 1: Is Poly fitted to that as well, or is that attached more around keyboards and displays and all those other things? Is Poly fitted to that as well, or is that attached more around keyboards and displays and all those other things? is poly fitted to that as well or is that attached more around keyboards and displays and all those other things

Speaker 2: Poly fits into it too. It all fits into it. Yeah. Poly fits into it too. poly fits into it too It all fits into it. it all fits into it Yeah. yeah

Speaker 1: Is there a space where Poly had this kind of narrative about trying to go after office and make it more video conferencing ready and Huddle Room, I think, was the product that they would have? Is that still a narrative that HP can leverage and focus on, or is Poly more of an on-desk thing? Is there a space where Poly had this kind of narrative about trying to go after office and make it more video conferencing ready and Huddle Room, I think, was the product that they would have? is there a space where poly had this kind of narrative about trying to go after office and make it more video conferencing ready and huddle room i think was the product that they would have Is that still a narrative that HP can leverage and focus on, or is Poly more of an on-desk thing? is that still a narrative that hp can leverage and focus on or is poly more of an on-desk thing

Speaker 2: No, absolutely. As we drive what we're calling the future of work, we've been creating HP IQ platforms to enable all of our devices to talk seamlessly to each other, and recognize things like when you walk into a room with your PC, it automatically knows who you are, pulls up your conference call, pulls up the presentation that you need. It makes it very seamless for the worker. No, absolutely. no absolutely As we drive what we're calling the future of work, we've been creating HP IQ platforms to enable all of our devices to talk seamlessly to each other, and recognize things like when you walk into a room with your PC, it automatically knows who you are, pulls up your conference call, pulls up the presentation that you need. as we drive what we're calling the future of work we've been creating hp iq platforms to enable all of our devices to talk seamlessly to each other and recognize things like when you walk into a room with your pc it automatically knows who you are pulls up your conference call pulls up the presentation that you need It makes it very seamless for the worker. it makes it very seamless for the worker

Speaker 1: Got it. You folks also have this AI-Enabled Savings Program that HP is trying to go after. Just talk about the cost reduction initiatives the company has and how big can this get on a gross on a net basis, and what are the different vectors you're looking at? Got it. got it You folks also have this AI-Enabled Savings Program that HP is trying to go after. you folks also have this ai-enabled savings program that hp is trying to go after Just talk about the cost reduction initiatives the company has and how big can this get on a gross on a net basis, and what are the different vectors you're looking at? just talk about the cost reduction initiatives the company has and how big can this get on a gross on a net basis and what are the different vectors you're looking at

Speaker 2: Yeah. We have been focused on driving some cost savings and transformation through AI enablement across our whole company. We've been seeing good traction on that. Some examples are that in our supply chain, we've been scaling AI agents that enable us to automate order entry and returns. We also have a digital teammate for our channel partners where they can ask questions, they can get guidance on next steps. Yeah. yeah We have been focused on driving some cost savings and transformation through AI enablement across our whole company. we have been focused on driving some cost savings and transformation through ai enablement across our whole company We've been seeing good traction on that. we've been seeing good traction on that Some examples are that in our supply chain, we've been scaling AI agents that enable us to automate order entry and returns. some examples are that in our supply chain we've been scaling ai agents that enable us to automate order entry and returns We also have a digital teammate for our channel partners where they can ask questions, they can get guidance on next steps. we also have a digital teammate for our channel partners where they can ask questions they can get guidance on next steps We've been using AI in our software development area to help boost the productivity of our developers. Those are just three examples. We're working on scaling it quite a lot across the company. That program is intended to drive $1 billion in gross annual run rate savings by its third year by FY 2028. We're well on track there. We're excited about what AI can do for us from a productivity perspective inside HP. We've been using AI in our software development area to help boost the productivity of our developers. we've been using ai in our software development area to help boost the productivity of our developers Those are just three examples. those are just three examples We're working on scaling it quite a lot across the company. we're working on scaling it quite a lot across the company That program is intended to drive $1 billion in gross annual run rate savings by its third year by FY 2028. that program is intended to drive $1 billion in gross annual run rate savings by its third year by fy 2028 We're well on track there. we're well on track there We're excited about what AI can do for us from a productivity perspective inside HP. we're excited about what ai can do for us from a productivity perspective inside hp

Speaker 1: Thanks, Karen. Just from my side, how does the AI-enabled savings program differ from the Future Ready? I think those are two different kind of buckets you talk about. Maybe the second part of this is, when I think about $1 billion gross savings, is there a rule of thumb to think about what could be the net on that? Is that more dependent on what does the top line look like? Thanks, Karen. thanks karen Just from my side, how does the AI-enabled savings program differ from the Future Ready? just from my side how does the ai-enabled savings program differ from the future ready I think those are two different kind of buckets you talk about. i think those are two different kind of buckets you talk about Maybe the second part of this is, when I think about $1 billion gross savings, is there a rule of thumb to think about what could be the net on that? maybe the second part of this is when i think about $1 billion gross savings is there a rule of thumb to think about what could be the net on that Is that more dependent on what does the top line look like? is that more dependent on what does the top line look like

Speaker 2: Yeah. It differs from Future Ready. Future Ready was our program prior to this, and Future Ready was before the ability of AI to enable us. Yeah. yeah It differs from Future Ready. it differs from future ready Future Ready was our program prior to this, and Future Ready was before the ability of AI to enable us. future ready was our program prior to this and future ready was before the ability of ai to enable us That was really a lot focused on driving traditional type cost savings across the company, and we successfully exceeded our expectations on Future Ready. With the advent of AI, it enables us to do so much more, and that's why we've announced this AI-enabled transformation. Your second part of the question? That was really a lot focused on driving traditional type cost savings across the company, and we successfully exceeded our expectations on Future Ready. that was really a lot focused on driving traditional type cost savings across the company and we successfully exceeded our expectations on future ready With the advent of AI, it enables us to do so much more, and that's why we've announced this AI-enabled transformation. with the advent of ai it enables us to do so much more and that's why we've announced this ai-enabled transformation Your second part of the question? your second part of the question

Speaker 1: Just the $1 billion of gross savings, is there a rule of thumb to think about? Just the $1 billion of gross savings, is there a rule of thumb to think about? just the $1 billion of gross savings is there a rule of thumb to think about

Speaker 2: Yep. Yep. yep

Speaker 1: What does that net look like? Is that more contingent on what top line ends up being? What does that net look like? what does that net look like Is that more contingent on what top line ends up being? is that more contingent on what top line ends up being

Speaker 2: Yep. For all of these savings programs that we've done, they enable us to ensure that we're able to invest for the longer term while still driving a good bottom line. Rule of thumb, I think a lot depends on the kind of headwinds that we're facing that we need to offset and the investment needs that we see ahead. Yep. yep For all of these savings programs that we've done, they enable us to ensure that we're able to invest for the longer term while still driving a good bottom line. for all of these savings programs that we've done they enable us to ensure that we're able to invest for the longer term while still driving a good bottom line Rule of thumb, I think a lot depends on the kind of headwinds that we're facing that we need to offset and the investment needs that we see ahead. rule of thumb i think a lot depends on the kind of headwinds that we're facing that we need to offset and the investment needs that we see ahead

Speaker 1: Yeah. Just on free cash flow, right? If I think about the guide for this year of $2.8 billion-$3 billion, it sort of implies that it will do about $1 billion a quarter in Q3, Q4. I think that would be the math, right? It seems to be a nice step up, in fairness, to what you've done in the first half. Some of that is normal. You always have a better back half. Just talking about, what is enabling this kind of step up in free cash flow in the back half? Maybe if I just extend that a bit, how do you think about longer-term free cash flow generation for the company? Yeah. yeah Just on free cash flow, right? just on free cash flow right If I think about the guide for this year of $2.8 billion-$3 billion, it sort of implies that it will do about $1 billion a quarter in Q3, Q4. if i think about the guide for this year of $2.8 billion-$3 billion it sort of implies that it will do about $1 billion a quarter in q3 q4 I think that would be the math, right? i think that would be the math right It seems to be a nice step up, in fairness, to what you've done in the first half. it seems to be a nice step up in fairness to what you've done in the first half Some of that is normal. some of that is normal You always have a better back half. you always have a better back half Just talking about, what is enabling this kind of step up in free cash flow in the back half? just talking about what is enabling this kind of step up in free cash flow in the back half Maybe if I just extend that a bit, how do you think about longer-term free cash flow generation for the company? maybe if i just extend that a bit how do you think about longer-term free cash flow generation for the company

Speaker 2: Yeah. Thanks for the question. We're really pleased to have delivered about $1 billion in free cash flow just in our first half. Seasonally, you're right, our first half is much lower than our back half typically. A lot of that has been driven by the strength of our PSG business, which we expect to continue. That has a negative cash conversion cycle and clearly helps. We've also driven some improvement in our working capital position in the first half. Yes, we're confident about what we intend to deliver in the back half, and that put our guidance-- We increased our guidance along with increasing it on EPS and free cash flow to put us solidly in that $2.8 billion-$3 billion range for the year. Yeah. yeah Thanks for the question. thanks for the question We're really pleased to have delivered about $1 billion in free cash flow just in our first half. we're really pleased to have delivered about $1 billion in free cash flow just in our first half Seasonally, you're right, our first half is much lower than our back half typically. seasonally you're right our first half is much lower than our back half typically A lot of that has been driven by the strength of our PSG business, which we expect to continue. a lot of that has been driven by the strength of our psg business which we expect to continue That has a negative cash conversion cycle and clearly helps. that has a negative cash conversion cycle and clearly helps We've also driven some improvement in our working capital position in the first half. we've also driven some improvement in our working capital position in the first half Yes, we're confident about what we intend to deliver in the back half, and that put our guidance-- We increased our guidance along with increasing it on EPS and free cash flow to put us solidly in that $2.8 billion-$3 billion range for the year. yes we're confident about what we intend to deliver in the back half and that put our guidance-- we increased our guidance along with increasing it on eps and free cash flow to put us solidly in that $2.8 billion-$3 billion range for the year

Speaker 1: Just, Karen, beyond this year, right, what's the way to think about free cash flow generation for the company? You target 90%, 100% of net income. Just talk about longer term, how do you think about free cash flow generation? Just, Karen, beyond this year, right, what's the way to think about free cash flow generation for the company? just karen beyond this year right what's the way to think about free cash flow generation for the company You target 90%, 100% of net income. you target 90% 100% of net income Just talk about longer term, how do you think about free cash flow generation? just talk about longer term how do you think about free cash flow generation

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. yeah

Speaker 1: Maybe especially in the context of memory is taking up more working capital as you go forward, I feel. Maybe especially in the context of memory is taking up more working capital as you go forward, I feel. maybe especially in the context of memory is taking up more working capital as you go forward i feel

Speaker 2: Yep. That said, we are focused on driving continued free cash flow growth. We know it's important for our shareholders. We know earnings are important. We know free cash flow is important, and so we're going to be focused on continuing to improve it from here. Yep. yep That said, we are focused on driving continued free cash flow growth. that said we are focused on driving continued free cash flow growth We know it's important for our shareholders. we know it's important for our shareholders We know earnings are important. we know earnings are important We know free cash flow is important, and so we're going to be focused on continuing to improve it from here. we know free cash flow is important and so we're going to be focused on continuing to improve it from here

Speaker 1: Can you spend a minute or two on just capital allocation? How do you folks look at that? What do you think about dividends versus buybacks versus tuck-in or whatever M&A you would look at? Can you spend a minute or two on just capital allocation? can you spend a minute or two on just capital allocation How do you folks look at that? how do you folks look at that What do you think about dividends versus buybacks versus tuck-in or whatever M&A you would look at? what do you think about dividends versus buybacks versus tuck-in or whatever m&a you would look at

Speaker 2: Yeah. I would start with just in general, our capital allocation policy has remained the same for a long period of time. For those of you who don't know it's a policy that we intend to return roughly 100% of our free cash flow to our shareholders over time, as long as our leverage remains under 2x and there aren't better ROI opportunities. You've seen us do just that over a long period of time. In fact, just in the first half, we returned roughly $1 billion to shareholders. We generated roughly $1 billion. In terms of dividends and share repurchases, we like them both. What you've seen is us growing our dividend over time. We know that's important to our shareholders. We believe in a growing dividend. Then we like to supplement the share return with share repurchase. Yeah. yeah I would start with just in general, our capital allocation policy has remained the same for a long period of time. i would start with just in general our capital allocation policy has remained the same for a long period of time For those of you who don't know it's a policy that we intend to return roughly 100% of our free cash flow to our shareholders over time, as long as our leverage remains under 2 x and there aren't better ROI opportunities. for those of you who don't know it's a policy that we intend to return roughly 100% of our free cash flow to our shareholders over time as long as our leverage remains under 2 x and there aren't better roi opportunities You've seen us do just that over a long period of time. you've seen us do just that over a long period of time In fact, just in the first half, we returned roughly $1 billion to shareholders. in fact just in the first half we returned roughly $1 billion to shareholders We generated roughly $1 billion. we generated roughly $1 billion In terms of dividends and share repurchases, we like them both. in terms of dividends and share repurchases we like them both What you've seen is us growing our dividend over time. what you've seen is us growing our dividend over time We know that's important to our shareholders. we know that's important to our shareholders We believe in a growing dividend. we believe in a growing dividend Then we like to supplement the share return with share repurchase. then we like to supplement the share return with share repurchase

Speaker 1: Got it. There's been a lot of focus on memory in the last six months, last nine months clearly. One of the things that clearly seems to be happening is there seems to be a wider array of components that are getting to be in short supply or supply chain challenges starting to persist. I was wondering if you're starting to see that as well, where this is not just a memory issue, it's becoming a broader issue. If that's the case, maybe the part I want to go to is, does that put more headwind on working capital as you go forward? Because you perhaps have to allocate dollars not just for memory, but maybe processors power amplifiers and all kinds of different things. Got it. got it There's been a lot of focus on memory in the last six months, last nine months clearly. there's been a lot of focus on memory in the last six months last nine months clearly One of the things that clearly seems to be happening is there seems to be a wider array of components that are getting to be in short supply or supply chain challenges starting to persist. one of the things that clearly seems to be happening is there seems to be a wider array of components that are getting to be in short supply or supply chain challenges starting to persist I was wondering if you're starting to see that as well, where this is not just a memory issue, it's becoming a broader issue. i was wondering if you're starting to see that as well where this is not just a memory issue it's becoming a broader issue If that's the case, maybe the part I want to go to is, does that put more headwind on working capital as you go forward? if that's the case maybe the part i want to go to is does that put more headwind on working capital as you go forward Because you perhaps have to allocate dollars not just for memory, but maybe processors power amplifiers and all kinds of different things. because you perhaps have to allocate dollars not just for memory but maybe processors power amplifiers and all kinds of different things

Speaker 2: We have seen input cost rise in general. Initially, we had higher rise on memory. Right now, we're seeing a higher rise on storage. We had talked about both memory and storage being 35% of our BOM for the year. That was the average for the year, so it will be higher in the back half. We have seen input cost rise in general. we have seen input cost rise in general Initially, we had higher rise on memory. initially we had higher rise on memory Right now, we're seeing a higher rise on storage. right now we're seeing a higher rise on storage We had talked about both memory and storage being 35% of our BOM for the year. we had talked about both memory and storage being 35% of our bom for the year That was the average for the year, so it will be higher in the back half. that was the average for the year so it will be higher in the back half That didn't include CPUs. CPUs were obviously included in our outlook too. In general, we're going to be focused on where we have rising costs, making sure that we offset it, again, through our four-pillar mitigation playbook, the last of which is increasing price. That didn't include CPUs. that didn't include cpus CPUs were obviously included in our outlook too. cpus were obviously included in our outlook too In general, we're going to be focused on where we have rising costs, making sure that we offset it, again, through our four-pillar mitigation playbook, the last of which is increasing price. in general we're going to be focused on where we have rising costs making sure that we offset it again through our four-pillar mitigation playbook the last of which is increasing price

Speaker 1: Tariffs maybe on the other side seem to become less of a headwind if that's potentially and get rebates potentially down the road. Maybe any perspectives on where tariffs are as a headwind and then how you look at the framework of potentially getting some of those credits back. Tariffs maybe on the other side seem to become less of a headwind if that's potentially and get rebates potentially down the road. tariffs maybe on the other side seem to become less of a headwind if that's potentially and get rebates potentially down the road Maybe any perspectives on where tariffs are as a headwind and then how you look at the framework of potentially getting some of those credits back. maybe any perspectives on where tariffs are as a headwind and then how you look at the framework of potentially getting some of those credits back

Speaker 2: Yeah. We dealt a decent amount with tariffs last fiscal year. You saw us work to offset that, and should more come our way, we'll be doing the same. Right now, the tariffs have been impacting our print business. Yeah. yeah We dealt a decent amount with tariffs last fiscal year. we dealt a decent amount with tariffs last fiscal year You saw us work to offset that, and should more come our way, we'll be doing the same. you saw us work to offset that and should more come our way we'll be doing the same Right now, the tariffs have been impacting our print business. right now the tariffs have been impacting our print business They've been roughly about 10%. The administration may announce something in July around tariffs, but whatever that is, we'll be focused on mitigating. In terms of refunds, we're a complex multinational company, and the government isn't yet ready to process refunds for complex companies like us. As soon as they're ready, we'll be applying. They've been roughly about 10%. they've been roughly about 10% The administration may announce something in July around tariffs, but whatever that is, we'll be focused on mitigating. the administration may announce something in july around tariffs but whatever that is we'll be focused on mitigating In terms of refunds, we're a complex multinational company, and the government isn't yet ready to process refunds for complex companies like us. in terms of refunds we're a complex multinational company and the government isn't yet ready to process refunds for complex companies like us As soon as they're ready, we'll be applying. as soon as they're ready we'll be applying

Speaker 1: Got it. Any update, anything you want to share on just on the Chief Executive Officer search, the timeframe, timeline on that? Got it. got it Any update, anything you want to share on just on the Chief Executive Officer search, the timeframe, timeline on that? any update anything you want to share on just on the chief executive officer search the timeframe timeline on that

Speaker 2: Yeah. Our board has been actively working on the Chief Executive Officer search. We're not going to give a timeframe. These things always could take longer than you expect anyway. I'd say the board remains focused on finding the right next leader for HP, with a proven track record of leading complex global companies like ourselves. In the meantime, I would say we are not skipping a beat with Bruce at the helm. Yeah. yeah Our board has been actively working on the Chief Executive Officer search. our board has been actively working on the chief executive officer search We're not going to give a timeframe. we're not going to give a timeframe These things always could take longer than you expect anyway. these things always could take longer than you expect anyway I'd say the board remains focused on finding the right next leader for HP, with a proven track record of leading complex global companies like ourselves. i'd say the board remains focused on finding the right next leader for hp with a proven track record of leading complex global companies like ourselves In the meantime, I would say we are not skipping a beat with Bruce at the helm. in the meantime i would say we are not skipping a beat with bruce at the helm He has done a fabulous job as Interim Chief Executive Officer. He's just a really terrific, seasoned leader, and we are continuing all momentum under his leadership. He has done a fabulous job as Interim Chief Executive Officer . he has done a fabulous job as interim chief executive officer He's just a really terrific, seasoned leader, and we are continuing all momentum under his leadership. he's just a really terrific seasoned leader and we are continuing all momentum under his leadership

Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm up on my questions, but maybe I'll turn this back to you. Any closing comments? Anything we did not touch on you want to flag our way? Yeah. yeah I'm up on my questions, but maybe I'll turn this back to you. i'm up on my questions but maybe i'll turn this back to you Any closing comments? any closing comments Anything we did not touch on you want to flag our way? anything we did not touch on you want to flag our way

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. yeah

Speaker 1: You've been at HP a couple of years now. You've been at HP a couple of years now. you've been at hp a couple of years now

Speaker 2: Yeah, just under two years. Yeah, just under two years. yeah just under two years

Speaker 1: Just under two years. Just under two years. just under two years

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. yeah

Speaker 1: Just love any thoughts from your side on the whole thing. Just love any thoughts from your side on the whole thing. just love any thoughts from your side on the whole thing

Speaker 2: Yeah. HP obviously is the founder of Silicon Valley. We've had our ups and downs over the years. One of the key reasons why I was so excited to join this company is because we're an iconic company in the midst of a significant technology transformation with AI. I think from an investor standpoint, you're just seeing the beginning of this, with our stock price movement just over the last week. I would say we are going to be very focused on leading and driving this AI transformation at the edge, leading and driving the future of work, our future of work strategy. We are investing behind it. We are focused on ensuring that we take HP into its next best era. Yeah. yeah HP obviously is the founder of Silicon Valley. hp obviously is the founder of silicon valley We've had our ups and downs over the years. we've had our ups and downs over the years One of the key reasons why I was so excited to join this company is because we're an iconic company in the midst of a significant technology transformation with AI. one of the key reasons why i was so excited to join this company is because we're an iconic company in the midst of a significant technology transformation with ai I think from an investor standpoint, you're just seeing the beginning of this, with our stock price movement just over the last week. i think from an investor standpoint you're just seeing the beginning of this with our stock price movement just over the last week I would say we are going to be very focused on leading and driving this AI transformation at the edge, leading and driving the future of work, our future of work strategy. i would say we are going to be very focused on leading and driving this ai transformation at the edge leading and driving the future of work our future of work strategy We are investing behind it. we are investing behind it We are focused on ensuring that we take HP into its next best era. we are focused on ensuring that we take hp into its next best era

Speaker 1: Perfect. We'll wrap it up with that. Thank you very much for your time. Perfect. perfect We'll wrap it up with that. we'll wrap it up with that Thank you very much for your time. thank you very much for your time

Speaker 2: Thank you, Amit. Thank you, Amit. thank you amit