HP Chief Financial Officer Karen Parkhill said the company's Personal Systems business posted record revenue growth of 18% in the third quarter, as higher average selling prices and a premium product mix supported results during a commodity cost cycle. Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, Parkhill said HP continued to execute a four-pillar mitigation plan focused on securing supply, shaping demand, reducing costs and taking pricing actions.
HP shares had risen 73% over the prior six months and were trading near a 52-week high of $32.78, with recent closes around $32.60 to $32.64. InvestingPro assigned the stock a health score of 2.97 out of 5, rated good. The company's dividend yield was 3.68%, with payments maintained for 56 consecutive years.
Average selling prices in Personal Systems rose 40% in the latest quarter, driven by premium mix and a decline in lower-value products, Parkhill said. AI PCs accounted for roughly 50% of the Personal Systems mix, while commercial customers represented about 70% of segment revenue.
Tariff-related items also affected results. HP booked about $0.11 per share in IEEPA tariff refunds in the third quarter, adding roughly 80 basis points to both gross and operating margins. Another $0.08 per share is expected in the fourth quarter, with possible spillover into the first quarter of fiscal 2027. The company said it paid about $500 million in tariff and tariff-related expenses in the prior fiscal year.
Margins in Personal Systems are expected to trough in the fourth quarter before recovering toward a long-term framework of 5% to 7% during fiscal 2027. Overall gross profit margin was described at roughly 20%.
The print segment has an estimated global total addressable market of about $150 billion. HP expects fourth-quarter print margins to land at the low end of its 16% to 19% range. Smart Tank market share grew by four points in the latest quarter, representing roughly one-third of the 17 million printers sold worldwide during that period. HP's overall print market share is in the low to mid-30s worldwide, while Smart Tank share is in the low to mid-20s. Industrial Printing posted its 12th consecutive quarter of growth.
Operationally, HP said it established long-term supplier relationships, qualified new suppliers at record speed and qualified Chinese memory suppliers for products sold in China and select international markets. Its Workforce Experience Platform was placed in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for device management and is used by CIOs to manage PCs, workstations, printers and collaboration devices, with telemetry on memory usage.
HP also detailed software and printing initiatives. Precise Print launched in the United States and is rolling out to 130 countries, allowing users to print selected web content or spreadsheets without marketing clutter. Copilot integration was added for automatic redaction of sensitive information, such as Social Security numbers, and document summarization when scanning. HP Neo is used in industrial printing workflow management, while the HP All-In Plan subscription service is intended to build recurring revenue.
The company said its CEO search is about seven months into a normal six- to 12-month process, with the focus on finding a leader suited to the AI-at-the-edge era. HP is also deploying AI internally, using AI-enabled information at Asian manufacturing sites for first-time quality, AI agents in call centers to speed response times, and AI in back-office teams for productivity and faster pricing decisions.
Parkhill characterized the company as being in early stages of hybrid AI, with workloads running both in the cloud and locally at the edge. She said enterprise customers are seeking alternatives to cloud-based AI, citing token costs, speed, security and privacy as factors.
