HEWLETT-PACKARD Galway recorded a loss of $12.5 million (€8.8 million) in the year to the end of October 2010, but only after posting an exceptional loss of $18.6 million arising from additional pension funding and redundancy costs.
The business, which provides software and services to customers globally, continues to shift towards research and development and service creation activities, and away from basic manufacturing, according to the accounts.
The directors said the company finished the 2010 year with “significant cause for optimism” as it had two new major research and development initiatives launched on site.
These would be significant in terms of increased employment but also in terms of the company’s long-term strategic importance to Hewlett-Packard, the company’s directors said.
The two new initiatives include a cloud services project based in the company’s Galway plant, which will be working with Hewlett-Packard labs in Bristol, England. The accounts show the team working on the project is expected to double in size in 2011.
The initiative also presents downstream opportunities in other areas, the accounts say.
The second venture is in the IT area and is aimed at transforming how products are supported by systematically gathering and analysing information on how the products are performing.
Skills in the area already exist in the Galway operation and it is expected the team will be scaled up significantly during 2011, the accounts state.
They show the company had a turnover of $353 million in the 2010 year, up from $294.9 million the previous year. The bulk of sales was outside of Ireland.
The $12.5 million loss in the year to October 2010 follows on from a loss of $26 million the previous year.
The company employed an average of 268 people during the year, down slightly from 271 in the previous year. The cost of employing the staff was $25 million (2009, $26.68 million).
The company’s research and development cost during the year was $10.78 million, compared with $11.26 million the previous year.
The Galway company’s immediate parent is a Dutch company, Hewlett Packard EMEA Holdings II BV.
In July it was reported that Hewlett-Packard was looking for more office accommodation in Galway. HP employs 4,500 people in Ireland, most of them at their Irish headquarters in Leixlip.
