Hewlett-Packard (HP) on Wednesday reported a massive net loss for its fiscal third quarter while it forecast weak performance for the next quarters.

According to HP, it lost $8.9 billion for the period stemming from losses in all its core business units except for its Software unit.

Aside from declines in most of its business units, massive accounting write-downs linked to job cuts and a failed acquisition contributed to this net loss.

The loss is the worst in the 73-year history of the Silicon Valley veteran.

HP Restructuring and Troubles

Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer said in a statement that “HP is still in the early stages of a multi-year turnaround, and we’re making decent progress despite the headwinds.”

“During the quarter we took important steps to focus on strategic priorities, manage costs, drive needed organizational change, and improve the balance sheet. We continue to deliver on what we say we will do,” she added.

The loss comes even though HP had revenue of $29.7 billion for its third quarter. That is, however, a decline of 5 percent from its $31.2 billion revenue during the fiscal third quarter of 2011.

HP revealed a loss per share of $4.49 compared to its $0.93 earnings per share during the same quarter last year. During the fiscal third quarter of 2011, the company took in a net income of $1.9 billion.

The company took a hit from “after-tax costs of $10.8 billion, or $5.49 per diluted share, related to the amortization and impairment of purchased intangible assets, the impairment of goodwill, restructuring charges, acquisition-related charges and charges relating to the wind-down of certain retail publishing business activities, including the previously announced charges related to the impairment of goodwill within HP’s Services segment, the restructuring program announced in May 2012, and the impairment of the purchased intangible asset associated with the ‘Compaq’ trade name,” the company revealed.

HP suffered a write-off of more than $1 billion connected to the termination of some 27,000 workers. Another big write-off for the company comes from its floundering Electronic Data Systems unit.

Back in 2008, HP bought the business for $13.9 billion and it is still yet to perform up to the levels the company is hoping for.

The acquisition was closed during the term of former HP CEO Mark Hurd who resigned in 2010 because of a highly-publicized scandal.

According to estimates, HP would have had a net income of $2 billion without these write-offs.

HP Units Decline

Almost all business units of the computer industry veteran saw a decline in the recently-ended quarter.

The Personal Systems Group, the HP unit that makes personal computers, saw a revenue reduction of 10 percent when compared to the same quarter of 2011 (year over year). Operating margin for the said group was at 4.7 percent.

According to HP, the Personal Systems Group saw a 9 percent decrease in Commercial revenue while Consumer revenue shrunk 12 percent.

The unit saw a 6 percent decline in sales of desktop computers while notebook unit sales dropped 12 percent resulting in a total units sales decline of 10 percent.

The HP Imaging and Printing Group similarly saw a decline. HP said that the unit experience a 3 percent year over year decline on a 15.8 percent operating margin.

Commercial hardware revenue and units were up 4 percent year over year but Consumer hardware revenue was down 13 percent year over year with a 23 percent decline in printer units, HP said.

The company’s Services unit registered a decline of 3 percent year over year on an operating margin of 11 percent.

Technology Services revenue was down 1 percent year over year, Application and Business Services revenue was flat, and IT Outsourcing revenue declined 6 percent year over year, HP noted.

The Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking (ESSN) unit also saw revenue slide at 4 percent year over year with a 10.9 percent operating margin.

According to the company, Networking revenue was up 6 percent, Industry Standard Servers revenue was down 3 percent, Business Critical Systems revenue was down 16 percent, and Storage revenue was down 5 percent year over year.

The industry giant also said that the HP Financial Services unit saw flat revenue year over year as the 2 percent increase in net portfolio assets was offset by a 2 percent decrease in financing volume. HP said that this unit had an operating margin of 10.4 percent.

The only HP business unit that saw growth in the quarter was its Software unit. According to the company, revenue grew 18 percent year over year with an 18.0 percent operating margin.

However, this includes results from Autonomy, a company HP bought in October of last year for $10 billion.

HP said that Software revenue was driven by 2 percent license growth, 16 percent support growth, and 65 percent growth in services.

Read Hewlett-Packard Investor Relations Report

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About Solon Harmony Dolor

A passion for technology and journalism makes this upcoming writer very interested in social media and technology news. Fresh from finishing an English and Journalism degree from the University of the Philippines Diliman, he aims to bring interesting news to our readers .