H-P Beats the Street

SAN FRANCISCO -- Hewlett-Packard(HPQ Quote) outpaced Wall Street's third-quarter earnings estimates Tuesday.

Shares of H-P were recently up 2.9% to $44.96 in recent after-hours trading.

Net income for the quarter grew 14% to $2 billion, or 80 cents a share, from $1.8 billion, or 66 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

Excluding special charges, EPS was 86 cents. Analysts were looking for 83 cents.

Revenue at the Palo Alto, Calif., tech company rose 10% to $28 billion, from $25.4 billion for the same quarter of last year. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting $27.4 billion.

For the fourth quarter, H-P projected revenue of $30.2 billion to $30.3 billion and EPS, less items, from $1.01 to $1.03. Analysts were expecting revenue of $30.2 billion and earnings, less items, of $1 a share.

The guidance doesn't reflect the impact of H-P's impending purchase of Electronic Data Systems(EDS Quote).

On the hardware side, H-P competes with Dell(DELL Quote) and Lenovo.

H-P's recent move to acquire EDS puts the company more squarely in competition with IBM(IBM Quote) and other services-oriented firms.