Mobile shift keeps these two on hold

Article Excerpt

More people are accessing the Internet through mobile devices, which has hurt computer and printer sales. Hewlett-Packard is responding by splitting in two, while Canon (see box) is repurchasing shares and making deep cost cuts. However, both stocks will stay in a narrow range until their sales improve. HEWLETT-PACKARD CO. $34 (New York symbol HPQ; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 1.9 billion; Market cap: $64.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.6; Dividend yield: 1.9%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.hp.com) plans to break itself into two separate companies. The first firm, called Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, will sell computing products, like servers and analytics software, to businesses and governments. It will also offer cloud computing services and financing. Hewlett-Packard Enterprise will have annual revenue of $58.4 billion and gross profits of $6 billion. Meg Whitman, Hewlett’s current chief executive officer, will become this firm’s CEO. The second company, called HP Inc., will focus on the slowergrowing personal computer (59% of its revenue)…