SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -- Hewlett-Packard Co. cut its full-year profit outlook after quarterly revenue missed expectations on weak sales of printers, personal computers and servers, sending its shares down 3%.While HP's diversified business lines - which also include computer services and software - have kept it relatively resilient to the economic downturn, it is still vulnerable to sharp cutbacks in corporate spending on technology.
"The big disappointment, not surprisingly, is the shortfall in revenue," said Pacific Crest Securities analyst Brent Bracelin. "Their hardware businesses, both servers and storage, are under intense scrutiny. Budgets are being cut and that showed up in the shortfall today."
For fiscal 2009, HP on Wednesday forecast profit excluding items of $3.76 to $3.88 a share, on a revenue decline of 2% to 5% from $118.4 billion in fiscal 2008. That compared with its previous forecast for earnings per share of $3.88 to $4.03 on revenue of $127.5 billion to $130 billion.
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