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HPQ FY2026 Q1 SOFTENING

HP Inc. earnings call

Feb 24, 2026 · 17:00 ET Alok JuyalBruce BroussardKaren Parkhill
Buzzberg read

AI PCs now over 35% of shipments and rising

HP reported Q1 FY26 revenue of $14.4B (+7% YoY) and EPS of $0.81, at the top of their guidance. Personal systems revenue grew 11% on momentum from Windows 11 refresh and AI PCs, while print declined 2%. However, management flagged a surge in memory costs, now expected to be ~35% of PC BOM for the year, leading to PS margins below long-term range and a lowered outlook—expecting to be at the lower end of EPS guidance. Memory cost surge: DRAM/NAND prices doubled sequentially, pushing memory to ~35% of PC BOM for FY26.

Buzzberg read AI PCs now over 35% of shipments and rising HP reported Q1 FY26 revenue of $14.4B (+7% YoY) and EPS of $0.81, at the top of their guidance. Personal systems revenue grew 11% on momentum from Windows 11 refresh and AI PCs, while print declined 2%. However, management flagged a surge in memory costs, now expected to be ~35% of PC BOM for the year, leading to PS margins below long-term range and a lowered outlook—expecting to be at the lower end of EPS guidance. Memory cost surge: DRAM/NAND prices doubled sequentially, pushing memory to ~35% of PC BOM for FY26. Read full analysisCollapse analysis

HP reported Q1 FY26 revenue of $14.4B (+7% YoY) and EPS of $0.81, at the top of their guidance. Personal systems revenue grew 11% on momentum from Windows 11 refresh and AI PCs, while print declined 2%. However, management flagged a surge in memory costs, now expected to be ~35% of PC BOM for the year, leading to PS margins below long-term range and a lowered outlook—expecting to be at the lower end of EPS guidance. Memory cost surge: DRAM/NAND prices doubled sequentially, pushing memory to ~35% of PC BOM for FY26.

  • PC TAM expected to decline double digits in CY26 due to industry-wide pricing actions.
  • HP plans to mitigate via supply agreements, pricing actions, cost reductions, and product configuration changes.
  • AI PC mix reached 35% in Q1, up from 30% in prior quarter.
Revenue $14.438B -1% QoQ
EPS $0.81 -13% QoQ
Gross margin 19.64% reported
PERSONAL_SYSTEMS op margin 5% reported

What changed this quarter

01
AI

AI PCs now over 35% of shipments and rising

Management is focused on AI at the edge, with AI PCs now over 35% of shipments and increasing every quarter. They are expanding partnerships with Microsoft and OpenAI to embed AI into products and operations, and are scaling AI agents across supply chain for productivity gains…

02
Supply

Memory costs roughly doubling sequentially

Memory cost surge: DRAM/NAND prices doubled sequentially, pushing memory to ~35% of PC BOM for FY26.

03
Demand

PC unit TAM expected to decline double digits in calendar 26

Management acknowledges significant near-term headwinds from memory costs and trade uncertainty, maintaining guidance but expecting to be at the lower end.

04
Guidance

Full-year EPS closer to lower end of guidance

Guidance tone

AI, capex & demand read

AI

Platform & monetization

Management is focused on AI at the edge, with AI PCs now over 35% of shipments and increasing every quarter. They are expanding partnerships with Microsoft and OpenAI to embed AI into products and operations, and are scaling AI agents across supply chain for productivity gains, targeting $1 billion in savings by FY28.

Demand

Bookings & conversion

PC unit TAM expected to decline double digits in calendar 26. Management acknowledges significant near-term headwinds from memory costs and trade uncertainty, maintaining guidance but expecting to be at the lower end.

Tone · Cautious

Management acknowledges significant near-term headwinds from memory costs and trade uncertainty, maintaining guidance but expecting to be at the lower end.

Bottlenecks

Compute & memory

Memory is a bottleneck for AI infrastructure

“So that we are not able to, we are not fully, if I say this, that if there is a specific cost escalation of the memory, you pass on that cost increase, but overall system will be limited because of some of these actions which I called out.”
Ketan Patel

Supply-chain alpha

A1

Memory cost as a share of PC BOM nearly doubled from 15-18% to ~35% for FY26, driven by DRAM/NAND price spikes.

“memory and storage costs made up roughly 15 to 18 percent of our PC bill of materials, and we now currently estimate this to be roughly 35 percent for the year”
Karen Parkhill
A2

HP expects PC unit TAM to decline double digits in CY26 due to industry-wide pricing actions to offset memory costs, signaling potential demand destruction.

“we are aligned with industry experts now projecting the PC unit TAM to decline double digits in calendar year 26”
Karen Parkhill
A3

HP is qualifying new memory suppliers and cutting qualification time in half, adding supply flexibility and potentially easing memory procurement constraints.

“we are also accelerating our engineering efforts to qualify these commodities across our different platforms”
Ketan Patel
A4

HP observed consumer demand pull-in in December ahead of price increases, suggesting customers are front-buying PCs to avoid expected price hikes.

“consumer, as Karen said, there was a bit of pull-in in the month of December is what we observed”
Ketan Patel

Forward guidance

SofteningGuidance tone · was IN LINE last Q
Forward guidance
MetricPeriodRangeMidpointStatus
EPSFY2026$2.90–$3.20$3.05GUIDED
EPSFY2026 Q2$0.70–$0.76$0.73GUIDED
Free cash flowFY2026$2.8B–$3B$2.9BGUIDED

Guidance credibility

2 / 2met or beat
Guidance credibility
IssuedMetricTargetGuideActualOutcome
FY2026 Q2EPSFY2026 Q3$0.61–$0.71$0.83Met / beat
FY2025 Q4EPSFY2026 Q1$0.73–$0.81$0.81Met / beat

Company read-throughs

OPENAI
Private company
Partners

HP is piloting OpenAI's enterprise agent platform, indicating OpenAI's push into enterprise AI deployment and potential broader enterprise adoption.

“this month HP established an exploratory partnership with OpenAI to pilot OpenAI Frontier, their new enterprise platform”
Bruce Broussard
+28.3%
since call
$388.22$498.21
Partners

HP is embedding Microsoft 365 Copilot into printers, deepening the partnership and potentially driving Copilot adoption in print workflows.

“We also expanded our partnership with Microsoft embedding Microsoft 365 Copilot directly into HP printers”
Bruce Broussard
+128.8%
since call
$417.25$954.79
+142.9%
since call
$635.90$1,544.50
Supply chainSupply-chain alpha

HP is qualifying new memory suppliers and cutting qualification time in half, adding supply flexibility and potentially easing memory procurement constraints. — Increased qualified supplier base could weaken incumbents' pricing power over time.

+312.2%
since call
$117.85$485.75
Supply chainSupply-chain alpha

HP expects PC unit TAM to decline double digits in CY26 due to industry-wide pricing actions to offset memory costs, signaling potential demand destruction. — Competitors will face similar pressure, and the overall PC market could shrink materially.

+128.8%
since call
$417.25$954.79
+142.9%
since call
$635.90$1,544.50
Supply chainSupply-chain alpha

Memory cost as a share of PC BOM nearly doubled from 15-18% to ~35% for FY26, driven by DRAM/NAND price spikes.

+312.2%
since call
$117.85$485.75
Supply chainSupply-chain alpha

HP observed consumer demand pull-in in December ahead of price increases, suggesting customers are front-buying PCs to avoid expected price hikes.