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HP Inc. (HPQ)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Aug 20, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Third Quarter 2015 Hewlett-Packard Earnings Conference Call. My name is Amy, and I'll be your conference moderator for today's call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today's call, Mr. Kirt Karros, Treasurer and Investor Relations Leader. Please proceed.

Kirt Karros

Analyst

Good afternoon. Welcome to our fiscal 2015 third quarter earnings conference call with Meg Whitman, HP's Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Cathie Lesjak, HP's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Also joining today's call are Dion Weisler and Tim Stonesifer, who post-separation are expected to serve as President and Chief Executive Officer of HP Inc. and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, respectively. Before handing the call over to Meg, let me remind you that this call is being webcast. A replay of the webcast will be made available shortly after the call for approximately 1 year. We posted the earnings release and the slide presentation accompanying today's earnings release on our HP Investor Relations web page at www.hp.com. As always, elements of this presentation are forward-looking and are based on our best view of the world and our businesses as we see them today. For more detailed information, please see the disclaimers on the earnings materials relating to forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. For a discussion of some of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, please refer to HP's SEC reports, including its most recent Form 10-Q. HP assumes no obligation and does not intend to update any such forward-looking statements. We also note that the financial information discussed on this call reflects estimates based on information available at this time and could differ materially from the amounts ultimately reported in HP's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended July 31, 2015. Finally, for financial information that has been expressed on a non-GAAP basis, we have included reconciliations to the comparable GAAP information. Please refer to the tables and slide presentation accompanying today's earnings release. I'll now turn the call over to Meg.

Margaret Whitman

Analyst

Thanks, Kirt, and thanks to all of you for joining us today. With only 2 months left until our separation, I'm pleased with the progress we've made along many fronts. In the third quarter, we once again did what we said we'd do, delivering non-GAAP diluted EPS of $0.88, above our previously provided outlook range. We delivered $856 million in free cash flow, in line with our expectations. And we returned $670 million to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases, all while executing with military precision, one of the largest and most complex separations than had ever been undertaken. By business, we're seeing the benefits of the work we've done over the past several years to strengthen the product strategy and go-to-market execution for the Enterprise Group. Enterprise Group performed very well in Q3, with solid constant currency revenue year-over-year growth across all 3 regions and good momentum in Industry Standard Servers, Storage, Networking and Technology Services support. In Enterprise Services, we're turning the corner in what has been one of the most critical parts of the turnaround. ES significantly improved its sequential revenue trajectory and delivered another quarter of sequential and year-over-year profit improvement. Software performance was mixed with growth in security and IT management SaaS revenue. In Personal Systems and Printing, market declines and competitive pricing pressures have accelerated since May. While Dion and his team are aggressively managing costs and gaining share in key focus areas, we now see a difficult business environment for at least several quarters to come. Turning to the separation. We achieved a number of significant milestones during the past few months. On July 1, we filed the initial Form 10 for Hewlett Packard Enterprise with the SEC. A tremendous amount of work went into the submission, including building 3…

Catherine Lesjak

Analyst

Thanks, Meg. Overall, I feel good about our performance in Q3, even amidst market softness in some parts of the portfolio and continued year-over-year headwinds from unfavorable currency. Revenue of $25.3 billion was down 8% year-over-year or 2% in constant currency, with declines in all regions and particular weakness in EMEA. The 6-point gap between as reported and constant currency revenue performance is wider than prior quarters as the financial hedges are rolling off. Our gross margin of 23.8% was down 0.2 points year-over-year and 0.2 points sequentially in line with normal seasonality. Non-GAAP operating expenses were down 10% year-over-year, with reductions in SG&A primarily due to currency, only partially offset by increased investment in R&D. Non-GAAP operating profit of 8.6% was up 0.1 point year-over-year and flat sequentially. We delivered non-GAAP diluted net earnings per share of $0.88, above the high end of our outlook range. About $0.02 was a result of incremental channel business we would have otherwise expected to do in Q4 as we derisked our IT separation cutover by making sure the channel had what it needed when our systems were down in early August. Our non-GAAP EPS primarily excludes pretax charges of $401 million for separation, $242 million for amortization of intangible assets and additional noncash charges of $136 million for an Enterprise Services data center impairment and $114 million for a onetime pension adjustment. GAAP diluted net earnings per share of $0.47 was below our previously provided outlook range of $0.50 to $0.54, primarily due to the ES data center impairment, which was not considered in our outlook. We are nearing the end of our 2012 restructuring program, and 3,900 people exited in Q3. By the end of Q4, we expect to exceed our prior estimate of 55,000 people to exit the company by…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Maynard Um at Wells Fargo.

Maynard Um

Analyst

On your free cash flow guidance, can you just talk about where the big areas of cash inflow will be? Because you'll need to generate about $2 billion to $2.5 billion to reach your full year target. And then looking into fiscal '16, would it be fair to say that the cash conversion cycle improvements over the last couple of years has largely come from the PC side of the house? And I'm asking that because if you look at Hewlett Packard Enterprise's balance sheet metrics from the Form 10, it would seem you have room for some meaningful improvements when compared to some of your competitors, for example, in your DSO, and I'm just wondering if you've begun the process of identifying those opportunities on the HPE side to improve your cash flow.

Catherine Lesjak

Analyst

Thanks. So let me address the last question first and tell you that the improvement in the cash conversion cycle over the last couple of years has been broad-based. It has not just been the PC group. There have been improvements in PCs, there's been improvement in IPG and there's been improvement in EG. And so I don't think it's really skewed one direction. In terms of your question around the cash flow in Q4, let's start with the fact that in Q3, the free cash flow of $856 million was in line with our expectations. And so we believe we're on track to do the $3.5 billion to $4 billion in free cash flow for the year. Q4 is typically, as I'm sure you're aware, seasonally our stronger quarter from an earnings perspective and a cash flow perspective, but we do have some inflows and outflows that maybe are a little less typical. First, we've got the increase in separation costs, which are really driven by the incremental taxes that we need to pay as we're separating legal entities around the world. And then if you look at -- in my prepared remarks, I talked about business continuity planning, and it had really 2 impacts. One, it -- we basically put more into the channel, so our channel inventory levels are a bit higher. But that was done late in the quarter, so that drove DSO to be a bit higher because of the unfavorable sales linearity. That, of course, will turn around a bit. We also put -- had more inventory as a result of derisking the IT cutover, and that was largely offset by DPO. So you can look at that as kind of a wash. But we would expect that the accounts receivable now would get collected earlier in Q4 and, therefore, would be a nice tailwind for us. And then finally, probably the biggest impact, is really in other assets and other liabilities. As we talked about at the end of I think Q1 and Q2, we had a very significant use of cash in other assets and other liabilities. And we talked about the fact that over the course of the year, a significant portion of that would reverse, that it was really timing. We saw a little bit of that in Q3, and we expect a pretty significant source of cash from other assets and other liabilities in Q4 that then supports our outlook of free cash flow of $3.5 billion to $4 billion for the year in total.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Toni Sacconaghi at Bernstein.

Toni Sacconaghi

Analyst

Your Q4 guidance for EPS is lower. So you beat on your -- relative to your Q3 guidance on EPS, and yet you lowered to the low end of your full year range for the full year, implying a much weaker Q4 than consensus had been expecting and certainly the mid-range of your guidance had been pointing to. Can you comment on what's driving that? And is part of it elevated inventory levels, which you talked about on the last earnings call and reiterated again this call? Or what is it that is causing this relatively material shortfall relative to your expectations for Q4? And I have a follow-up, please.

Catherine Lesjak

Analyst

Sure, Toni. So our Q4 outlook for EPS is $0.92 to $0.98, and it is below what you would consider normal seasonality. If you adjust for the $0.02 that we shipped in Q3 that we otherwise would have shipped in Q4, it's more in line. But to your point, the outlook definitely reflects the change in inventory levels. We are going to bring channel inventory levels back down. It reflects the currency headwinds that we're getting both because of hedges that are coming off and just the currency headwind -- the indirect currency headwind of a very competitive pricing environment in IPG as our Japanese competitors take their -- the weak yen against both the euro and the dollar and really price aggressively. And then it also takes into consideration the softness that we're seeing in the PC market. And in terms of the year, just to make sure everyone's clear on this, we did narrow our range to $3.59 to $3.65, just because, of course, we just have 1 quarter left in the year.

Toni Sacconaghi

Analyst

And then, Cathie, I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about operating margins in the Enterprise Group. I know you talked about it sort of being reflective of mix towards Industry Standard Servers, but it's the lowest operating margin in 5.5 years. You had a pretty big sequential volume improvement in the quarter, and it wasn't all ISS. And so -- and currency didn't change that much sequentially either. So I feel like there's something more there that's pressuring margins in that business, and I was hoping you can comment on that, please.

Catherine Lesjak

Analyst

Sure, Tony. I think I'm going to throw that one to Tim Stonesifer to address.

Tim Stonesifer

Analyst

Sure. So overall, we thought that EG performance was -- I'm not on? Sorry. So overall, we thought EG performance for the third quarter was pretty good, too. On the revenue front, to Cathie's earlier comments, revenue was up 15% on local currency in ISS. We were up 7% in storage on a local currency. Meg alluded to the progress on 3PAR and all-flash. And networking, excluding Aruba, was up low single digits as well. So from a revenue perspective, we felt very good about that. To your point, there was some margin pressure. And when you look at it year-over-year, the increased volumes in ISS definitely put some pressure on the margin front, given that the margins in ISS are lower than storage and networking. And that was primarily driven by Tier 1. And then foreign exchange obviously played an impact in that. When you look at it quarter-over-quarter, OpEx was up a little bit quarter-over-quarter as we continue to invest in R&D and our sales motion. And then on the ISS front, there are some increased pricing pressure particularly in China. So that's what drove the delta there.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Sherri Scribner at Deutsche Bank.

Sherri Scribner

Analyst

So I was hoping you could give us a little more detail on what you're seeing on the storage side. You saw really strong strength in the flash business. And Meg, I think you mentioned that Converged is now 50% of Storage. What type of growth are you expecting in that business now that Converged is bigger? And why do you think you guys are doing so well in the flash side?

Margaret Whitman

Analyst

So I think what you're seeing is a lot of the hard work that's been done over a number of years. These businesses are longer lead time businesses, so whether it's all-flash storage array product, the go-to-market motion that we began to hone 3 or 4 years ago. And then, frankly, Manish Goel, who is the new Head of our Storage business, has done a fantastic job. And as I said, you called it out really well, we've turned the corner with the, faster-growing Converged. 3PAR is fulfilling the promise that we've all known 3PAR's had for many, many years. And the all-flash arrays are seeing incredible growth and driving the mid-range 3PAR Converged portfolio with about 30% of the mix. So listen, we're feeling good about this business. We've got good momentum, and I think you're going to see continued strength here over the next few quarters.

Catherine Lesjak

Analyst

So I would add that if you look at Converged Storage, it grew 18% on a constant currency basis year-over-year. With that now being bigger than more than 50% of the portfolio, you should see pretty significant opportunity for growth.

Margaret Whitman

Analyst

I mean, I think you've all heard us talk about that we have businesses where the declining businesses have been bigger than the growing businesses. We're now rounding the corner where the growing businesses are bigger than the declining businesses, which is actually going to lead to growth. And boy, that has taken a while to get here, but we're here. And I think that sets Hewlett Packard Enterprise up pretty well as we think about growth going forward.

Catherine Lesjak

Analyst

And actually, I think there's another data point that I probably should give out, and that's the one in my prepared remarks. I talked about 3PAR plus EVA plus XP, because in large cases, 3PAR is, in fact, cannibalizing EVA and, in some instances, XP, and that grew 13% in local currency. So there's a lot of great data points here that storage should be a growth engine going forward for the company.

Sherri Scribner

Analyst

Okay, great. And then, Cathie, I just wanted a little more detail on the hedges. You mentioned them rolling off. How should we think about hedges going forward?

Catherine Lesjak

Analyst

So I think the best way to think about the hedges is that for the most of our businesses, the hedges are largely already run off. And so we're putting new hedges on at basically today's exchange rate. But in the case of IPG, we hedged a little bit longer from a supplies [ph] perspective. And that's why you see a much narrower range between as reported and constant currency in IPG. And if you looked at it at the supplies level, there's almost no gap between the two. And we've had -- those hedges are running off. And I guess I take -- if you go back and you look at the 10-Q for Q2, you will see in the currency section the fact that our cash flow hedges running off have been driving about over $800 million of profit in the first half of the year. Those are the hedges that were in the first half. We've still got some that have come off in Q3 and a few more that come off in Q4. By the end of the year, we should largely be at kind of today's currency rates with our hedges.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Katy Huberty at Morgan Stanley.

Kathryn Huberty

Analyst

As we look forward beyond separation, tax, CapEx costs related to the separation and think about more sustainable cash flow, how should we think about restructuring costs specifically? If you look past 7 years, you've had $1 billion, give or take, just about every year of outflows from restructuring. Is there any discussion or stated goal internally to get back to a point that restructuring is not such a headwind?

Catherine Lesjak

Analyst

Yes, there is a goal to reduce restructuring on a go-forward basis, and we're going to talk a lot more about this at the Security Analyst Meeting. But the view is that the restructuring that we have talked about is potential, where we will provide more details. But that will be, at least for the Enterprise Services business, the last restructuring that we do. We are setting that business up so that it has sustainable 7% to 9% operating margin, but it also then, in its ordinary course of business, can fund the refinement that it needs to do with its workforce. So in essence, the restructuring charges that are at the corporate level, that are fundamentally restructuring the cost base by getting the labor pyramid right and the offshore mix correct, will be done. And that then it's the fine-tuning of what's going on in the course of the year, the contracts that win, the contracts that we don't win kind of get factored in, and that will be funded within the P&L, the non-GAAP P&L of ES.

Kathryn Huberty

Analyst

And that's also true outside of Enterprise Services?

Margaret Whitman

Analyst

Yes. I mean, I think from a restructuring perspective, Katy, it's Meg -- Cathie described is we recognize that Enterprise Services has to fund, over time, its -- the fine-tuning, as Cathie said, of its workforce. And we are -- we're going to show you that walk as we get to Security Analyst Meeting. This will be the last restructuring for Enterprise Services. And then as we said, we've got to offset some of the dis-synergies, and there may be a smaller restructuring associated with that. But we are working the final details. As we see the momentum of the business, as we see where we're growing, where we need to move our labor structure around, we're going to give you a lot of detail on that because we know it's been a concern, and frankly, it's been a concern to us. And so this will be the last of the restructuring Mohicans this year.

Kathryn Huberty

Analyst

Okay. And then just as a follow-up, you sound much more constructive on the enterprise server market over the next couple of quarters relative to some of your partners and suppliers that have reported. Can you just talk about where that confidence comes from?

Margaret Whitman

Analyst

I think it comes from a couple of places. One is our innovation engine is as strong as it has ever been in servers. Gen9 is definitely a winner. Our HP Apollo high-performance compute line is fantastic. We're back in the game and even some of the more basic rack and tower. And then, of course, our cloud line offering, density optimized servers for Tier 1, Tier 2 service providers with Foxconn, is totally the right thing to do, and we make money in that business. So I think we've got the right innovation engine. We've also refined our go-to-market over a longer period of time. And part of the challenge we had prior to me was the fact that we changed our go-to-market so many times. Every CEO had a different idea about how to go to market. We've just locked on one and we're driving it. There might be things we can do to optimize it, but we've got a strategy and we're driving it. And I think that's given the sales force and customers a lot of confidence. And we've all been out with a lot of customers. The first couple of years was sort of more internally focused. We've been out with customers. I would say our customer and partner confidence is at an all-time high. So -- and the backlog, by the way, going into fourth quarter is the highest backlog I've had since I've been at the company. So all signs are good, but we remain on constant alert. This market changes at the drop of a hat. You have a currency shock, you have some other problem and it can dissipate. But we're feeling really very good about the server business and, frankly, EG overall. Even in TS, you saw that orders are positive in a constant currency basis, and that's been that way for a couple of quarters. So we feel really good about that. And as the hardware business grows, there's more to attach to, which gives us that profit associated with TS.

Operator

Operator

Next question is from Kulbinder Garcha at Crédit Suisse.

Kulbinder Garcha

Analyst

My first question is for Cathie on free cash flow. Just in the fourth quarter, the movement of assets and liabilities, can you be more specific in terms of what's generating so much cash and what's reversing over the course of the year? That's my first question. The second one is on free cash flow as well actually is that this year, there's a number of items are kind of nonrecurring, some of them have been and some of them haven't, in terms of what's depressing free cash flow, whether it's the restructurings in the fiscal year '12 on the separation costs, the separation CapEx, foreign taxes, plus there may be some impact from the 2 new restructuring programs you discussed last quarter. I put that number somewhere between $3 billion and $4 billion depressing this year's free cash flow. What I'm curious about is how quickly does that drop in coming years. And if you're not going to answer that now, which I imagine you're not, is that the kind of information we will get at the Security Analyst Meeting?

Catherine Lesjak

Analyst

So I'll take the last question first. Yes, that will be more information that we'll provide at the Security Analyst Meeting for each company in terms of what the free cash flow should look like for '16, and then you'll see some of the nonrecurring items kind of in that bridge. In terms of the other assets and other liabilities, Kulbinder, it isn't any one thing that turns around. It's that the number of items that have -- are just kind of ordinary course of business have been a headwind and that -- I mean, an example is that the accounts -- the vendor receivables. At the end of Q3, our vendor rebate receivables was high. We knew that, that would turn around. That's ordinary course of business that it would turn around because we collect those receivables. And it's those kinds of items across a number of different line items that are turning around just in ordinary course in Q4 in other assets and other liabilities. And as I said, we did see some of that in Q3 as well.

Kulbinder Garcha

Analyst

Great. Just one more thing, if I may, just on the Printing side. The revenues are weaker, but the margins held in quite well. They haven't quite come down in the manner that you've been implying all year long. Can you speak about what's supporting them?

Catherine Lesjak

Analyst

Can you repeat the question one more time? We sort of -- you were a little muffled at the beginning. I think the operator might have been trying to cut you off. Can you start at the top on that question?

Kulbinder Garcha

Analyst

Yes. Sorry. My question was on the Printing. The Printing revenues were a bit weaker than we expected. I understand that pressure may last for some time. But my -- the actual margin, the percentage margin is holding in quite well. Are you able to sustain that level of constant currency declines and keep the margin higher level in the 17% to 18% range? Or do you still expect that to come down at some point?

Catherine Lesjak

Analyst

So let me help you understand the year-over-year change in operating margins for Printing. As we talked about, the #1 headwind that helped drive the decline year-over-year was really the competitive pricing environment. And this is a situation where while we get benefit from the weakness in the yen, we get that benefit on our cost structure on a piece of our Printing business. Our Japanese competitors get the weakness of the yen and that kind of war chest across their entire print portfolio. So competitive pricing has really driven basically ASP declines, very material ASP declines both on a year-over-year basis and sequentially. So that has increased in aggressiveness. That's partially offset this quarter in the fact that the supplies mix is at roughly 68%, up 2 points on a year-over-year basis. We had good strength. We've had growth in graphics, then we had good profitability in graphics. We also had a favorable mix impact because we have less home units in the ink space. And then like I said, we have the yen weakness as well. What's really important in this business, when you think about margins over the long term, is we've got to have the right cost structure, and then we have continue to place profitable units because that's what's going to drive the long-term success of -- and health of this business. And I don't know, Dion, if you would add anything else there.

Dion Weisler

Analyst

Yes. I think -- there's obviously a few initiatives that we remain extremely focused on. And one is accelerating our new and innovative business model around Instant Ink, and that, to remind everybody, is a subscription-based model. And it has a terrific value proposition for customer, has up to sort of 50% savings and the convenience of never running out of ink. And it's a terrific value proposition. And that is beginning to take hold as we ramp and accelerate the number of subscriptions that we build. The second is our focus on SMB and, in particular, the higher end of SMB with Officejet Pro X, which, of course, has terrific supplies attach associated with it. And that leverages off our very unique PageWide Array Technology. And the third is, as you remember, about a little over 4 months ago, we released our jet intelligence or what we internally call our R series LaserJet products, and that's been 8 years in the making of a new platform, which has a higher aftermarket supplies attach. And so we continue to remain really focused around those initiatives as well as the general initiative of shifting from transactional motions to contractual motions with managed print services, which adds significant value to our customers.

Catherine Lesjak

Analyst

And one of the things I would just add on that Instant Ink, it has a great value proposition for our customers, as Dion talked about. It also has attractive economics for Hewlett-Packard, and I think that, that's also very important to understand.

Operator

Operator

Next question is from Shannon Cross at Cross Research.

Shannon Cross

Analyst

Dion, I had a question for you on the PC side. Can you talk a bit about how you're thinking about balancing profitability versus market share and placement of units and how we should think about that given the weak end demand?

Dion Weisler

Analyst

Yes, look, I guess my strategy there has not changed since we were talking at SAM several years ago. We're not chasing share for share's sake, and we're very selective about what are valuable units, what we can attach around. And in a very challenging PC market, that is absolutely the right thing to do. There is some fairly significant headwinds. And so when I break that down, Shannon, and I think about sort of consumer and commercial, there's some parts of the consumer market that are not terribly interesting, empty calorie business. And we're not terribly interested in placing units there. But we've been doing pretty well in the premium segment, where we've been taking share in the higher priced bands. And we segment the market and heat map the market fairly significantly. We did anticipate a challenging operating system transition to Windows 10 on 2 dimensions: One was a free upgrade that was, of course, offered. And the second was the very short transition time, which is normally about 3 months, which is compressed to under 1 month. And what that drove was fairly high Windows 8 channel inventory levels, and that will take a little bit of time to flush. I guess the good news is that the Windows 10 feedback is pretty good, and a great operating system is important for the ecosystem and the industry. So once Window 8 flushes, which may take a little time here in the industry, we should see some stimulation from Windows 10. Commercial, of course, is a little simpler to understand. The compares are tough. This was the peak last year of the Windows XP transition. But that drives higher profitable units for us, and we are clearly focused on that.

Margaret Whitman

Analyst

I'd clarify that it's not our Windows 8 inventory that has to flush through. We're running nice inventories at Windows 8. So...

Dion Weisler

Analyst

Yes. Look, I think in general, that's an industry statement. If you were to look across by old reports, Windows 8 channel inventory levels are high, and they are on the higher side for us well. But we're, as an industry, looking at having to flush through 8 before 10 really takes hold.

Catherine Lesjak

Analyst

And before we move on, the bright spot that Dion mentioned around the consumer -- the premium consumer segment, this calendar Q2, we gained 4 points of share with our Spectre x360. So that is -- that's been a long time coming in and a really nice result to continue to have a great product set in that space.

Shannon Cross

Analyst

Great. And then just a question on China. Can you talk a bit about what you're seeing in terms of end demand and competitive pressures, not just in PCs but across the portfolio?

Margaret Whitman

Analyst

Yes, I'll start first and then turn it over to Dion. So China remains a very big and important market for us, but it is very competitive. And -- but I will say, our joint venture with Tsinghua is actually standing us in very good stead. We had an excellent quarter in servers in China, quite a good quarter in storage and a sequential improvement in networking in China. And so listen, it's a very competitive market by local competitors, by international competitors, but we're convinced that our strategy around the JV with Tsinghua is the right thing to do. And we're already seeing some benefits on just the basis of the announcement.

Dion Weisler

Analyst

And I'd say for Printing and Personal Systems, Personal Systems particularly the consumer segment, is pretty soft. The commercial segment, whilst it's not overwhelming, is not as contracted as what the consumer market is. The printing market is -- has been softer than traditionally it's been, so we continue to watch the market with interest. We're very interested in the work that Meg and the team have done with Tsinghua University. We think that is a pretty interesting model.

Operator

Operator

Our final question comes from Aaron Rakers at Stifel.

Aaron Rakers

Analyst

The first question I wanted to ask is going back to the enterprise business. Just curious, as we think about the separate entities, how the company thinks about the Technology Services piece, particularly as it relates to the fact that you've talked about positive growth on the order side. We've seen some positive trends on the hardware side. However, the reported growth on a year-over-year basis continues to decelerate. So when do you expect that actually to start to turn positive? And how are we thinking about the margin profile of that piece of the portfolio?

Margaret Whitman

Analyst

So let me tell you, so Technology Services is the crown jewel of enterprise growth. This is one great business, but there is a lag to this. And part of what you're seeing in as reported revenues is the currency issue. But frankly, as you saw our Enterprise Group revenues decline in '12, '13 and '14, that has a knock-on effect with Technology Services attach. The other problem is there was very high technology services attach to our Business Critical Systems, Itanium for one. So we are recovering from that. What I have to say is the team, led by Antonio Neri when he ran Technology Services, is he has done a remarkable job in creating products, like Proactive Care, Datacenter Care, that are actually filling the vacuum that was left by Itanium and a downward decline in Enterprise Group hardware revenues. So you're now, pretty soon, just like in storage, you're going to see a shift now to actually as reported growth in Technology Services because the new products are kicking in, the attach rate is at very good levels and now we have hardware growing again. So we feel pretty good about the underlying financial architecture associated with Enterprise Group. And Technology Services has not only great financial characteristics, virtually, every customer needs to attach technology services, so they have that ability to service their hardware in their data center real time with the biggest footprint of services individuals around the world.

Aaron Rakers

Analyst

And then as a follow-up and a follow-up to a prior question, as HP looks forward, how is HP looking at the PC overall industry in terms of growth rate or, for that matter, declines over the next couple of quarters? What is the assumption for the industry?

Dion Weisler

Analyst

Look, broadly speaking, our view is not dissimilar to the industry analysts. We think it will be challenging for the next several quarters. We're generally aligned with the industry on that. We see it being down high single digits versus only sort of negative 2 last year, driven by the XP refresh. We see notebooks being stronger than desktops. We see opportunity in commercial mobility, in accessories, in services. And the market to me at the moment reminds me a little bit of the market in 2013. And it really requires a highly disciplined approach to market segmentation, cost optimization, leveraging the 160,000 channel partners that we have around the globe that do an amazing job of adding value to our customer set and continuing to drive our innovation agenda. We remain disciplined about not chasing share for share's sake, playing where we choose to play and winning in those segments. And we are in a consolidating market. And inside that consolidating market, we are growing faster than the market. And if we do that in a very disciplined way, we still see opportunity in the longer term for the Personal Systems business.

Margaret Whitman

Analyst

But I think you've said, Dion, that the next couple of quarters are probably going to be simply tough.

Dion Weisler

Analyst

Indeed, indeed.

Margaret Whitman

Analyst

I mean, the next several quarters, we think, are going to be pretty tough.

Dion Weisler

Analyst

It's pretty challenging right there, right now, as I mentioned earlier.

Kirt Karros

Analyst

Thanks, Aaron, and thank you, everybody, for joining today's call.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our call for today. Thank you.