HP’s Growth Trouble (HPQ)(AAPL)(SNE)(MSFT)(SNDK)

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Dec 25, 10:15AM EST

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The market is assuming that Hewlett-Packard will grow 6% next year, from its current annual revenue of $92 million. This is the company’s forecast, and CEO Mark Hurd has earned enough respect with Wall St. so that the forecast is widely accepted

A good portion of HP’s growth targets are built around marketing cost-efficient data centers and consumer electronics devices.

HP’s expertise in creating data centers that are efficient and save large companies money is likely to become a large business for the big tech firm. HP has the ability and sales force, and the favorable economics are compelling.

But, consumer electronics sales bring the company into an ultra-competitive, even cut-throat part of the economy. The short-term growth potential of HP televisions and iPaq handheld wireless devices is far from certain. Moving into the realm of Apple, Sony, and Microsoft has damaged a number of companies. Firms like Sandisk and Creative Technology can attest to that.

If HP’s 2007 number has a significant consumer electronics component to it, 6% growth may be too much.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.