HP, the troubled Silicon Valley giant that is hard at work trying to turn around the trend of declining revenue, reported a decrease in revenue and earnings for the first quarter of fiscal 2013. Its CEO was optimistic, however, saying the quarter's earnings were higher than expected, which was indicative of the effectiveness of changes she had been implementing across the company.

HP reported US$1.2bn in net income, or $0.63 in earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, on $28.4bn in sales. The figures represented a 14% drop in EPS and a 6% revenue decline year over year.

President and CEO Meg Whitman said HP had beat its EPS outlook for the quarter by $0.11, thanks to improvements in channel and go-to-market efforts, as well as the restructuring program she announced in May 2012. “While there's still a lot of work to do to generate the kind of growth we want to see, our turnaround is starting to gain traction as a result of the actions we took in 2012 to lay the foundation for HP's future,” she said.

Revenue declined year over year across all HP business segments, except one: financial services, whose revenue grew 1% in the first fiscal quarter. Personal-systems revenue declined the most – by 8% - followed by a 7% decline in revenue reported by the company's enterprise-services business.

HP's enterprise group reported a revenue decline of 4%, while software revenue declined 2% and printing revenue for the quarter was 5% lower than one year ago.

The most recent development in the restructuring program HP has been on was the announcement of a plan to cut 850 jobs from the enterprise-services group in Germany. The plan also included closure of an HP campus in Rüsselheim and changes to the unit's portfolio and its sales and delivery model.

The move was part of a company-wide restructuring effort Whitman announced last year, saying it would lead to $3bn-$3.5bn in savings per year. The overall program included layoffs and early retirement of 27,000 employees.

The enterprise-services division has been in more trouble than others within the company. In August of last year, HP announced it had written down $8bn in company value, attributing the move to poor performance of enterprise services.

Former leadership of HP's subsidiary Autonomy is currently under investigation by US and UK authorities after allegations of fraud. It was HP who brought the allegations, accusing Autonomy founders of massaging their revenue numbers as HP was preparing to buy the UK company.

HP announced the allegations in November of last year, when it said it had suffered an impairment charge of $8.8bn, the bulk of which it attributed to alleged wrongdoing at the top of Autonomy. The UK firm's founder and former CEO Mike Lynch has denied the allegations.