By Angela Palumbo
HP Inc. stock has been hammered this year as rising costs and a sudden leadership change have affected investor sentiment. Earnings will give shareholders some answers as to where the company goes from here.
HP is scheduled to report fiscal first-quarter earnings after the stock market closes on Tuesday. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expect the computer maker to report adjusted earnings of 77 cents per share on revenue of $13.94 billion. That would be higher than the earnings of 74 cents per share on revenue of $13.5 billion HP reported in the same period last year.
HP's personal systems group consists of the company's laptops and other computing devices. Personal systems revenue is expected to be $9.71 billion, which would be up from last year's $9.22 billion. Revenue for the imaging and printing group is expected to be $4.14 billion, a drop from last year's $4.27 billion.
Despite the fact that overall revenue is expected to grow, shares of HP are struggling. The stock has dropped 18% this year and 47% over the past 12 months.
Memory demand outpaces supply due to the need to power artificial intelligence. This has led to higher costs, which puts pressure on HP's margins. The company gave a weaker-than-expected earnings forecast in November, and said that it was taking a "prudent approach to our guide while implementing aggressive actions to mitigate" the rising costs. This included raising prices.
Shareholders will want to see if the company's preventative actions are working to offset these higher costs.
Evercore analyst Amit Daryanani wrote in a note on Feb. 19 that he doesn't expect higher memory costs to affect near-term financials of tech hardware companies, as it's likely customers have made tech purchases early to avoid the rising prices.
"As we move through CY26, expect demand trends to become choppier as OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] begin to pass through ASP [average selling price] increases to offset rising memory prices," Daryanani wrote.
HP has also felt the impact of higher costs because of tariffs. The company has moved manufacturing out of places where tariffs were highest, but those changes weren't cheap.
The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that President Donald Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose levies was illegal. Trump then said on Saturday that he would be increasing global tariffs to a rate of 15% "effective immediately."
Daryanani wrote in a note on Feb. 20 that the Supreme Court's ruling should alleviate some near-term pressure on some tech hardware companies that have been most affected by tariffs, "though we believe this will only be a temporary reprieve as the Trump administration has already begun to take actions to invoke new sets of tariffs under Sections 122." HP investors will be looking for updates on how these trade policy changes will affect the company moving forward.
Shareholders are also looking to hear what the company has to say about its search for a new chief executive. HP announced on Feb. 3 that Enrique Lores stepped down from his position as CEO and was being temporarily replaced by Bruce Broussard, a member of the company's board of directors since 2021. Lores will start as the new CEO of PayPal Holdings on March 1.
Write to Angela Palumbo at angela.palumbo@dowjones.com
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February 24, 2026 04:00 ET (09:00 GMT)
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