Hewlett-Packard has announced its Asian sales for the year to October 31 will pass the $7bn level they hit just before the regional economic crisis started in 1997. Aided by economic recoveries in South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and elsewhere, the company’s revenue growth in Asia excluding Japan outpaced gains in many other regions in the fourth quarter of the financial year, the company said.
Asian sales for the three months to October 31 surged 41% to $1.4bn, representing more than 12% of total worldwide sales in the period. The rebound in Hewlett-Packard’s sales underscores the region’s economic recovery from its worst recession in decades, with households and companies speeding up spending on computers, printers and other information technology products.
In Singapore, a key manufacturing center for Hewlett-Packard, its shipments rose 19% to $5.9bn, or about 8% of the island state’s gross domestic product. On the manufacturing side for Singapore, even in the crisis, we haven’t done badly, a company official said.
