HP reports Q2 revenue down 22% YoY to $12.91B, vs. $13.07B est., Personal Systems revenue down 29% YoY to $8.18B, and Printing net revenue down 5% YoY to $4.74B
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the deepest quarter of a slide that began with the Q1 report three months earlier, when revenue fell 19% and Personal Systems dropped 24%. At -22% overall and -29% for PCs, Q2 marks the trough of the post-pandemic unwind — while Printing holds nearly flat at -5%, echoing its steady single-digit declines across every quarter of the cycle.
The surrounding coverage frames how temporary the collapse was: by the November Q4 report the decline had narrowed to 6.5%, and two years later the fiscal Q2 2025 print shows growth of 3.3%. The question this article answers is where the bottom was — and it turns out to be here.
First-order effects
- HP's Personal Systems segment absorbs the brunt — $8.18B, down 29% YoY — as commercial and consumer PC purchases made during the pandemic run off; Printing's $4.74B, down just 5%, cushions the total miss against the $13.07B estimate.
- HPQ investors take the hit directly, extending the pattern from the prior quarter's Q3 miss that sent the stock down more than 10%.
Second-order effects
- With PC volumes collapsing faster than Printing, HP's mix shifts toward its higher-margin consumables and printing business — raising the stakes for any further erosion there, since the segment can no longer be carried by hardware strength.
- The depth of the decline pressures the broader PC supply chain and Windows OEM channel, as vendors sitting on excess inventory compete harder on price into a shrinking demand pool.
Third-order effects
- The pattern across these five quarters — steep 2023 declines narrowing through Q4, then returning to growth by fiscal 2025 — points to a completed inventory-and-demand correction rather than structural loss, with the PC market normalizing toward replacement-cycle economics after the pandemic pull-forward.
The trend: PC demand is working through the post-pandemic bust cycle, with mid-2023 marking the trough before HP's revenue base stabilizes around Printing's steady declines and a recovering Personal Systems business.