【英语财经】惠普拟在高端笔记本市场叫板苹果 HP targets Apple’s share of premium laptop market

Five months after its historic split, HP Inc, maker of printers and PCs, is hoping to take on Apple in the laptop market as it searches for fresh sources of growth.

Dion Weisler, chief executive, told the Financial Times that focusing on new premium products was one of his priorities.

“I think we are pretty effective with building a premium line to take on share in Apple’s traditional space,” he said, pointing to HP’s newest laptops. “Over the last five to six years, we weren’t doing enough at the high end.”

While the global PC market has been shrinking since 2013, Apple has bucked the trend and seen sales of its MacBook increase — a trend that HP wants to emulate.

HP, the world’s second largest PC maker by shipments after Chinese rival Lenovo, faces a challenging outlook, with the company planning to make about 6 per cent of its 50,000 staff redundant this year.

The company relies on PC sales for two-thirds of its revenue. Mr Weisler said he believes the decline in the PC market “will moderate over time”, but did not know exactly when an uptick would occur.

Analysts at Credit Suisse forecast that HP’s PC sales will fall 9 per cent this year.

Another challenge has been the strong dollar and the weak yen, which gives Japanese competitors a big cost advantage. “We accept that it is the new normal,” Mr Weisler said, adding that HP’s response had been to cut costs. These measures have included accelerating the pace of lay-offs.

在经历了历史性的拆分5个月后，正在寻找新增长源的打印机和个人电脑(PC)制造商惠普公司(HP Inc)希望在笔记本电脑市场叫板苹果(Apple)。

惠普首席执行官戴恩?韦斯勒(Dion Weisler)向英国《金融时报》表示，聚焦于新款高端产品是他优先考虑的事项之一。

“我想我们在打造高端产品线、夺取苹果传统地盘的市场份额上相当有效，”他在谈到惠普最新款笔记本电脑时表示，“过去五、六年，我们在高端市场做得不够。”

尽管全球PC市场自2013年以来不断缩水，但是苹果逆势而上，实现MacBook销量增长——这正是惠普希望效仿的趋势。

按出货量计算，惠普是仅次于中国竞争对手联想(Lenovo)的全球第二大PC制造商。该公司面临着富于挑战的前景，计划今年裁减其5万员工的6%。

该公司三分之二的营收要依赖PC销售。韦斯勒称，他相信PC市场的下滑趋势“将随着时间的推移而逐渐趋缓”，但是不知道何时才能止跌回升。

瑞信(Credit Suisse)分析师预计，今年惠普的PC销量将下滑9%。

惠普面临的另一个挑战是美元走强、日元疲软，这使得日本竞争者拥有了较大的成本优势。“我们已经接受了这个新常态，”韦斯勒称，并补充称惠普的对策是削减成本。相关措施包括加速裁员步伐。

译者/马柯斯