HP Australasia Announces Local Results

HP Australasia Announces Local Results

Growth Of 20 Percent Consolidates HP's Market Position In Region

AUCKLAND, 16 November 2000 - Hewlett-Packard Australasia today consolidated its market position in Australia and New Zealand with the announcement of the company's 2000 annual results.

The results - based on growth of around 20 percent, take annual revenue to A$1.6 billion (unaudited) -- reinforcing the company's decision to reinvent its business strategy globally.

Barry Hastings, Managing Director, Hewlett-Packard New Zealand said: "We're now in the unique position of being at the intersection of 'always on' infrastructure, e-services and smart appliances. This focus has helped us consolidate our position as a major IT player.

"The results are extremely pleasing, as the year has been a challenging one in the New Zealand market. Beginning with a Y2K industry lock down and a new government, the first quarter was resultingly flat. Our greatest challenge in the second half, was the massive devaluation of our dollar against the greenback. With annual targets set and measured in US dollars, this had quite an impact.

"That said, our consumer business and small-to-medium business sector has remained bouyant, and during the second half we saw an upswing in business solutions."

Newly appointed, Managing Director of Hewlett-Packard Australasia, Norman McCann, who will visit New Zealand next week, said the company had recorded regional exports of A$192.5 million and invested almost A$15 million in research and development in Australia.

"HP is a strong advocate of the domestic and global IT&T industry," he said. "Our continued commitment to sustaining the development of investments in Australia is absolutely critical to maintaining long-term growth in this sector."

HP's global highlights during the year included the completion of the split from Agilent Technologies in June, (officially ending a process that began in March 1999) and the launch of the most advanced and exciting high end UNIX server solution - Superdome - onto the market.

Local highlights

* Hewlett-Packard Australasia signed a landmark eight-year, $280Million alliance with Novare, a fully integrated providers of business support and IT services. The alliance, one of the largest of its kind for HP in the Asia Pacific, positioned HP as the exclusive provider of IT operations services to Novare. * The Australasian HP Garage Program was launched in June 2000 providing a complete offering to facilitate the success of start-ups, dot-coms and other IT ventures. Australia was one of the three markets in Asia Pacific to implement the Garage Program. HP will fund up to A$3million per company and expects to invest in 15 to 20 companies through the Dot-Com Program and five companies under the Export Program in the next three years. In 2000, funding was awarded to two companies in Australia, BOBS.com.au and iSelect and one in New Zealand, Yippee Ltd. (Mambezi.com and Yippee.net). * In September, HP launched its most significant server solution for 2000 - Superdome. This single package combines the world's most powerful, flexible and available UNIX® computing platform with an industry-first go-to-market business model. Two thirds of the Asia Pacific region's orders have come from Australia. * Commercial and consumer PC sales and growth continued to be strong during 2000. HP was nominated by resellers as the "overall preferred supplier" in six of 13 categories announced by Inform including printer vendor, storage vendor, desktop PC vendor, mobile PC vendor, PC server vendor and small/mid-range server vendor. * HP pioneered world leading wireless technology with the New Zealand Stock Exchange. This allows clients to trade and transfer securities directly without passing through a broker. * HP New Zealand's sponsorship of Kidz First Hospital in South Auckland, which will officially open in December.

* HP Australia won the "Best employer to work for in Australia" award in the over 1,000 employees category.

The Future

McCann said HP Australasia would continue to build on the achievements and growth of 2000.

"Australasia is one of the most dynamic and sophisticated IT markets in the region," he said, "and I believe there is great potential to fully explore this market.

"With the enormous number of exciting innovations emerging not only from HP, but throughout the IT industry, we have the opportunity to achieve significant growth in our business in this region."

"We have entered a fundamentally different phase in the Internet era and that's where our e-services strategy comes in. HP's overall business strategy is to invent useful customer solutions at the intersection of e-services, information appliances and an always on Internet infrastructure.

"The real promise and power for business lies in the linkages - the connections, the intersection - of these three emerging forces. It is by understanding the interplay between them that we have the opportunity to use technology to fundamentally transform the customer experience, the value creation process and entire industries."

About HP

Hewlett-Packard Company -- a leading global provider of computing and imaging solutions and services -- is focused on making technology and its benefits accessible to individuals and businesses through simple appliances, useful e-services and an Internet infrastructure that's always on.

HP has 86,000 employees worldwide and had total revenue from continuing operations of $48.8 billion in its 2000 fiscal year.

HP Australasia has over 1,300 employees in Australia and New Zealand and total revenue of A$1.6 billion in its 2000 fiscal year. Information about HP and its products can be found at www.hpnz.co.nz

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