HPE as-a-service orders surge in latest quarter despite flat revenues

HPE recorded full year sales of $27.8bn as GreenLake continues to grow

HPE posted flat revenues when adjusted for constant currency during its fourth quarter but CEO Antonio Neri said the company had experienced "record demand for its edge-to-cloud portfolio" to end the year.

The vendor recorded net revenue of $7.4bn for Q4, up seven per cent sequentially and two per cent, or flat when adjusted for currency, from the prior-year period.

For the full year, sales stood at $27.8bn, up three per cent from the prior-year period or one per cent when adjusted for constant currency, with net earnings of $3.4bn and non-GAAP diluted net earnings per share of $1.96, a rise of 27 per cent from the prior-year period.

"HPE ended fiscal year 2021 with record demand for our edge-to-cloud portfolio, and we are well positioned to capitalise on the significant opportunity in front of us," said Antonio Neri, president and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

"In 2021, we accelerated our pivot to as a service, strengthened our core capabilities, and invested in bold innovation in high-growth segments.

"As our customers continue to demand greater connectivity, access to solutions that allow them to extract value from their data no matter where it lives, and a cloud-everywhere experience, HPE is poised to accelerate our market leadership and provide strong shareholder returns."

HPE has announced a raft of additions to its GreenLake as-a-service platform in recent months, including bringing storage-as-a-service to the platform and announcing new cloud services such as analytics and data protection.

The vendor's as-a-Service annualised revenue run rate (ARR) of $796 million for the fourth quarter was up 36 per cent year-over-year, with Neri claiming that order growth in the quarter rose 28 percent year-over-year with "particular strength in its as-a-service orders" which grew "an impressive 114 percent year-over-year".

"We also saw record levels of orders in key growth areas, including Intelligent Edge, high-performance computing, and artificial intelligence businesses," Neri added.

"We continue to see incredible response to our HPE GreenLake offering. We added more than 300 new GreenLake customers during fiscal year 21, bringing our customer count to more than 1,250."

Individual segments

For its fourth quarter, HPE's Intelligent Edge revenue was $815m, up four per cent from the prior-year period or two per cent when adjusted for currency, with 10.7 per cent operating profit margin.

Aruba Services revenue was up "high-single digits from the prior-year period when adjusted for currency", HPE said, and Intelligent Edge aaS ARR "was up triple-digits from the prior-year period".

High Performance Computing & Artificial Intelligence (HPC & AI) revenue was $1bn, up one per cent from the prior-year period or flat when adjusted for currency, with 14.3 per cent operating profit margin.

Meanwhile, Compute revenue was $3.2bn, up one per cent from the prior-year period or down one per cent when adjusted for currency with 9.4 per cent operating profit margin, and Storage revenue was $1.3bn, an increase of three per cent from the prior-year period or 2 per cent when adjusted for currency with 13.8 per cent operating profit margin.

Finally, Financial Services revenue was $858m, a rise of one per cent from the prior-year period or flat when adjusted for currency, with 14.1 per cent operating profit margin.