Taking a swipe or three at rival Dell, Hewlett-Packard Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina said she views the company as 'trapped' in the PC space and unlikely to pose a threat to HP in other businesses.
At a meeting in New York between HP executives and securities analysts, an attendee asked Fiorina if he wasn't reading her wrong in believing she was downplaying Dell as a threat. 'Heh,' Fiorina said. 'You're not reading me wrong.'
Fiorina said she believed that a recent agreement between printer rival Lexmark International to build Dell-branded printers for Dell was on the rocks, since Dell appeared to be taking market share from Lexmark.
'I expect that partnership is under great strain right now,' Fiorina said. 'I would not be surprised to see Dell deciding to do something different.'
Fiorina maintained that all of Dell's nearly 1 million units shipped in printers compared with HP's 43 million units in 12 months have been at the expense of Lexmark's market share. Furthermore, Fiorina said HP has sold 400,000 units to Dell customers as well through an OEM relationship.
'Frankly, [Dell] has had zero impact on the trajectory of our market-share growth, and it has had zero impact on the trajectory of our profit,' said Fiorina.
Referring to Dell's attempts to move into areas including the printer space, storage and services, Fiorina took perhaps her most pointed shot at the company.
'I think Dell is a company that is trapped in the PC business,' she said. 'They are trapped in the PC business with roughly 80 percent of their business in PCs, and 70 percent of that in a single geography.'
While HP maintains the number 1 market share in a number of technology segments, Dell continues to be the leading PC maker in the United States, ahead of HP. Fiorina said that HP was already outselling Dell in the fastest-growing segments of the business and in the fastest-growing geographies.
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