HP Senior Vice President outlines Middle East strategy during visit to region

Mr Cador met with a number of HP Middle East partners and outlined his vision for the remainder of FY07, identifying KSA, the GCC countries, Egypt and the UAE as particularly strong opportunities for further growth for PSG. HP is continuing to drive sales through its worldwide marketing campaign, 'The Computer is Personal Again' and driving adoption of the increasing product portfolio through its innovative mobile products and services.

The tour was part of HP's push within the Middle East region, emphasising the corporation's commitment to the area and Mr Cador's ongoing support and active role within the region. This comes a month after HP announced the impending redesignation of the HP EMEA framework starting 1st May 2007, with greater focus being placed on the Middle East.

'HP Middle East has experienced several successive strong quarters and has had a great start to FY07 for PSG. This is testament to the strength of the local team, the solid strategic direction, infrastructure of the market and leadership by the management team.' Said Mr Cador. 'At an EMEA level, we recognise the growing importance of the Middle East and its important that we focus and invest in the region to leverage the opportunity. Our Q107 figures demonstrated how strong the region is and we are keen to continue driving this forward.'

HP PSG's World Wide performance in Q107:

• HP has announced that its revenues for the first quarter of 2007 were $25.1 billion, representing an 11% year-on-year growth.

• HP became the first IT company to record more than $10 billion in revenues in the EMEA region in a quarter.

• During the quarter, on a year-over-year basis, revenue in Europe, the Middle East and Africa grew 14% to $10.7 billion

• Personal Systems Group (PSG) revenue grew 17% year-over-year to $8.7 billion, with unit shipments up 19% on a year-over-year basis. Notebook revenue grew 40% over the prior year period. Commercial client revenue grew 8% year-over-year, while Consumer client revenue increased 28%. Operating profit was $414 million, or 4.7% of revenue, up from a profit of $293 million, or 3.9% of revenue, in the prior year period.

'The gulf market continues to grow at an unparalleled pace and there are still significant growth opportunities in the UAE and KSA, particularly in the desktop and notebook segment,' Cador continued. 'Our hope is that through our aggressive driving of the IT market, we can continue to help drive the local economies giving consumers and Enterprises throughout the region, the tools they need to be able to succeed. The breadth of our portfolio helps us to meet a very diverse set of needs.

'The mobile revolution is an increasing fact of life world wide and while we believe Desktops will remain key in the corporate environment the future in the consumer space will be mobile.'
HP Middle East currently serves as the largest ICT technology and solutions provider in the Middle East with 670 employees and subsidiaries in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Jeddah, Khobar, Cairo, Oman and Ramallah servicing the GCC, Egypt and the Levant.