A boom in services sales helped PC titan HP bank an extra $300m (£181m) in profit during its closing fiscal quarter, despite an eight per cent drop in overall revenue.

The vendor saw turnover for the three months to the end of October drop eight per cent annually to $30.8bn. Despite this, net profit rose 14 per cent year on year to $2.4bn. Full-year revenue fell by three per cent to $114.6bn, but HP predicts this will rise to between $118bn and $119bn next year.

PC revenues dropped 12 per cent in Q4 to $9.86bn, despite an eight per cent hike in shipments. Storage and server revenue plummeted 17 per cent to $4.26bn.

Sales from HP's Imaging and Printing division were $6.45bn, down 15 per cent on the same period last year. Services continued to be the vendor's brightest prospect in Q4, with revenue up eight per cent to $8.9bn. The division has enjoyed healthy growth since HP splashed out $13.9bn on IT services behemoth EDS last year.

Geographically, EMEA was HP's weakest region in Q4, with revenue down by 17 per cent.