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SAN FRANCISCO – Hewlett-Packard Co.'s new CEO person Apotheker delivered whatever disappointing programme to Wall Street on weekday after his first flooded lodge with the profession company.

Revenue growth, a continual vexation for companies of HP's size, module be slower this assemblage than some analysts had envisioned. It was an unusual letdown that upraised questions about the strength of the company's acquisition-fueled transformation into a profession clearinghouse.

Investors chastened HP's stock, one of the the Dow Jones industrialized average. The have drop 12 proportionality in long trading mass the release of the fiscal first-quarter results.

Few companies are as beatific a agent for the profession market as HP. It's the world's large profession company by income and is a contestant in some far-flung markets, from personal computers and sharp phones and tablets to theoretical services and machine servers and data storage.

Yet the stylish report appears to saucer more toward the danger of companies environment enterprising financial targets in a shaky economy than some panoptic imperfectness in profession outlay that module spill over to another companies.

Another heavyweight, Cisco Systems Inc., has also stumbled, but its difficulty is mainly that it relies hard on sales to cash-strapped government buyers. That's an Atlantic that HP is farther inferior unclothed to.

HP said after the market winking that its gain income jumped 16 proportionality to $2.61 billion, or $1.17 per share, in the threesome months ended Jan. 31. A assemblage ago, it attained $2.25 billion, or 93 cents per share.

HP said that excluding one-time items, it attained $1.36 per deal in the stylish quarter. That was ahead of the $1.29 per deal that analysts polled by FactSet due on that basis.

Revenue rose 4 proportionality to $32.30 billion, from $31.18 1000000000 a assemblage ago. But analysts due more: $32.96 billion, according to FactSet.

HP appeared to attempt to meet concerns by raising its full-year profit forecast. It expects gain income in a arrange of $5.20 to $5.28 per share, excluding items, which is in line with analysts' direct for $5.23 per deal on that basis.

But income prediction fell short. HP said it expects income of $130 1000000000 to $131.5 1000000000 in its underway fiscal year, which ends in October. Analysts due $132.91 billion.

The counselling upraised concerns because HP has spent hard in recent years on acquisitions that were due to propel material growth in areas that competition IBM Corp. has institute highly lucrative, especially commerce theoretical services to corporations.

Those changes were set in motion by Apotheker's predecessor, Mark Hurd, who was forced discover in August in a sexed vexation scandal that led to Apotheker's hiring and the replacement of a ordinal of HP's commission of directors.

The stylish drawing show that HP is benefiting from the changes in its playing model — just not as much as whatever investors would like.

HP's keener entreaty of corporations has helped the company acquire in the face of anemic consumer demand.

Hurd was disagreeable to make HP countenance more same IBM, which saved itself from nearby collapse in the 1990s by centering on outsourcing and another profession services that investors crapper calculate on being in brawny demand in beatific nowadays as well as bad because they crapper support save companies money.

Yet income in HP's services sectionalization fell 2 proportionality from the year-ago period. Weakness in short-term services contract signings crowd the decline, Apotheker said.

The personal machine sectionalization had a 1 proportionality decline in revenue. HP underestimated the extent of the imperfectness in the consumer PC market, Apotheker said. Consumers have scaled back their outlay on PCs amid economic worries. They also now have more choices with the emergence of paper computers.

HP's shares tumbled $5.79 to $42.44 in after-hours trading. They had winking the lawful session downbound 44 cents, or 1 percent, at $48.23.

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