- HPE CEO Antonio Neri has revealed why he is expecting the company’s full-year revenue in constant currency to grow. These are the details.
HPE CEO Antonio Neri recently reported its fiscal fourth quarter with a profit of $480 million compared to a loss of $757 million in the same quarter a year ago. And revenue fell by about 9% to $7.22 billion from $7.95 billion a year ago. But Neri said that for the full fiscal year 2020, revenue in constant currency will grow. And in an interview with CNBC, Neri was asked why he was confident that this would happen.
“We had record EPS growth, which was up 20%. We had record free cash flow, which is up 58%. And we grew on all the key strategic indicators of focus… strong double digits. And the one that I’m particularly pleased about is the momentum we have in the ‘as-a-service’ model, which in Q4 grew 72%. So that gives me the confidence, based on the portfolio and the innovation we brought to the market and the demand we see from customers, to basically drive that growth in a profitable way based on the shift we have made this year,” said Neri. “So that’s why I’m confident about the future, about 2020 and beyond.”
One of HP’s biggest rival is Dell. And Dell launched a new on-demand offering where businesses pay based on the computing capacity rather than buying whole systems that they use in a way that is similar to HPE’s products. Neri dismissed the competition from Dell and pointed out that HPE has a lead in the “everything-as-a-service” business model in an interview with Business Insider.
“People are now trying to copy us, but our differentiation comes in different forms,” Neri told Business Insider. “We have expertise through our services business that’s unique.”
Dell is the majority owner of VMware. And HPE has an important strategic partnership with VMware and that will continue to go forward.
HPE’s as-a-service product — which is called GreenLake — works well for companies that have networks in the cloud and in private data centers. Neri said that the GreenLake channel pay-per-use sales grew 326% year-over-year during the fourth fiscal quarter.
Some of the acquisitions that HPE made to give it a significant advantage in leadership include big data and AI-based analytics companies BlueData and MapR.
