Starting with the premise: the personal computer market is mature and cyclical in its breaks and renewals. It has always been this way, but something important has changed: this year, demand has decreased after the exceptional peak experienced during the pandemic and its consequences; The offer has taken good note to avoid making mistakes with inventories. And all this appears in the income statements. Inflation has contracted the purchasing expectations of many customers, both companies and consumers. Therefore, the usual aggressive pricing of brands has become more acute at a delicate time. These are almost literal words from Inés Bermejo, who has been general director of HP Spain and Portugal for a year.
A compendium would be – always according to Bermejo – that we move away from a stage in which everyone bought or sold whatever it took to get by, to another in which innovation is decisive in customer decisions. There is no new Windows in sight as a trigger for the lawsuit. “My reading is that we have done our homework and we are prepared for when demand returns, which will not be like 2019 again.” When then? “Starting in 2024.” This detail (from) indicates that it will not be an explosion but rather a fundamental movement, which could last until 2026: it is what is needed to complete the transition towards new work models that justify trust in “healthy growth, with profitability, because we are in recovery mode,” says Bermejo.
The formula 'user experience' comes and goes in the conversation. “HP has led the rise of teleworking and hybrid work from the beginning, by transforming its PCs and their features: a laptop in 2024 will be very different from those sold in 2019.”
It's a very thoughtful plan, he says. HP has acquired two companies that stretch its core business and allow it to gain space in services. One is HyperX, a specialist in peripherals for the video game segment, increasingly significant in PC sales: “It is very interesting to see how the periphery is structuring the ecosystem, for which we have to guarantee that the user experience with the products and the peripherals are very well articulated.” On the other hand, the purchase of Poly, a classic provider of videoconferencing systems, has added an inclination towards collaboration and hybrid work, which 70% of Spanish managers say they prefer.
Bermejo does not confirm the rumor that HP would be close to announcing a subscription PC service. In any case, he clarifies that "with the current scheme, we are growing in the sale of digital devices at high double-digit ratios... and I can go that far." For now, the company is busy changing its catalog, its way of stimulating the cycle change that analysts predict and in which artificial intelligence will play a relevant role.
Personal computers and related services represent 3 of every 4 dollars that HP invoices globally; The rest is provided by printing systems, a very versatile amalgam that ranges from low-price printers to large-format presses and additive manufacturing machines with polymers and metals. These segments, logically, differ in their behaviors. “No one ignores that the impression of consumption is declining, but we believe that it will stabilize or, at least, decrease very little. What is transformative in this market is the conversion to service mode, in which each client has a certain level of personalization and pays according to their convenience; “We believe that this is the seeding of the future business model.”
