HP's Whitman reiterates 'multi-year journey' amid Q2 revenue miss

Leading up to Hewlett-Packard's second quarter earnings report after the bell on Wednesday, analysts were expecting a mixed bag.

They got one.

The tech giant reported second quarter earnings of $1.1 billion, or 55 cents per share (statement). Non-GAAP earnings were 87 cents per share on a revenue of $27.6 billion.

Wall Street was expecting earnings of 81 cents a share on revenue of $28.08 billion for the second quarter.

Out of the six core segments highlighted in the second quarter report, only the software group posted a positive revenue mark as the support team was up by 12 percent annually.

The rest of the software unit along with the remaining five segments all dropped in revenue on an annual basis.

CEO Meg Whitman highlighted the better-than-expected earnings per share stat in prepared remarks:

We beat the upper end of our non-GAAP diluted EPS outlook for the quarter by $0.05 per share, driven by better than expected performance in Enterprise Services and Printing, coupled with the accelerated capture of restructuring savings and improvement in our operations.

As far as the revenue miss (and the rest of the company) goes, Whitman reiterated that HP is still in the midst of a "a multi-year journey," adding that she feels good about the rest of the year. She continued that HP is "on track to deliver on our fiscal 2013 non-GAAP diluted earnings per share outlook."

For the outlook, Wall Street predicted that HP will project a weaker third quarter sequentially with sales of $27.78 billion.

HP settled on a third quarter earnings guidance range of 84 to 87 cents per share.

For fiscal 2013, HP kept its previous earnings guidance range of $3.50 to $3.60 per share.

Check back for more on HP's second quarter after today's conference call with analysts and investors at 2PM PT/5PM ET.

Screenshot via HP Investor Relations