Like all companies, many aspects of HP's day-to-day business affect our stakeholders financially. For example, our financial transactions have direct economic impacts1 on our:
- Suppliers through our purchase of goods and services
- Employees through wages paid
- Customers through sales and product pricing
- Governments through tax payments
- Communities through social investment
- Investors through dividends and share repurchases
As the money from these transactions circulates through the economy, our activities continue to have an indirect economic impact. In addition, HP products and services increase productivity, potentially boosting companies' profitability and strengthening the wider economy.
Although financial transactions have been regulated for centuries, there is little guidance for measuring overall economic contribution. We quantify some aspects and describe others more generally. The table outlines our direct and indirect economic impacts on each group. (See also the data dashboard and our financial statements.)
HP's economic impacts
| Group |
HP's direct economic impacts |
HP's indirect economic impacts |
| Suppliers |
HP spends money on products, materials, components and services. |
Our spending creates jobs in supplier companies. Suppliers and their workers pay taxes and support their local economies. Suppliers may also pay dividends to their investors. |
| Employees |
Compensation and benefits are a significant proportion of HP's expenses. We invest in training and development, which expands employees' opportunities. |
Employees pay taxes, and their private spending generates economic activity. |
| Customers |
HP recognized $118.4 billion in revenue from customers in 2008. |
Our products and services improve customer productivity, which may increase their contribution to society through business expansion and more taxes paid. |
| Local, state and national governments |
Local, state and national governments benefit from taxes paid by HP and our employees. |
Taxes paid enable government spending and programs. |
| Local, regional and national communities |
Social investment ($46.2 million in 2008), support for nongovernmental organizations and employee giving all benefit communities. |
These activities in turn support further economic activity. |
| Investors |
Shareholders receive dividends, and the value of their shares may grow. (See the chart in Performance.) |
Investors may pay taxes on dividends and on stock gains. |
The socioeconomic value of IT
The information technology (IT) sector has wide-ranging benefits for individuals, companies and society. For example:
- IT improves access to communications, especially in the developing world. This makes it easier to find, use and share valuable information. This can improve health, welfare and economic prosperity.
- Although the IT industry is responsible for about 2 percent of the world's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions2, our products and services also have the potential to help significantly reduce the other 98 percent of emissions. (See Enabling a low-carbon economy. )
- IT enables people to work from different locations and join meetings by video or conference calls. This can reduce the cost and environmental impacts of travel and help employees to balance their work and personal lives.
- Businesses can use radio frequency identification technology to automatically track items continuously, securely and wirelessly from the warehouse to the checkout, improving efficiency, security and customer service.
- Technology has an essential role to play in addressing global inequalities in education. It enables educators to rethink their approach to teaching and students to find, use and share information more broadly, and interact with their peers and teachers.
- The Internet and mobile technologies support democracy and expression by giving voice to people who could not easily publicize their views and experiences otherwise.
Many of these services require personal data to be entered and transmitted online. This requires robust procedures to keep data secure. Read more about how HP protects customer privacy.
We must also consider the energy costs and environmental impacts of the infrastructure required to provide these services. (See Climate and energy – Products for more information.)
Performance
The data dashboard summarizes HP's economic performance. (See our financial statements for more detail.)
Compared with FY07, HP's revenue increased by 13 percent in FY08 to $118.4 billion. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share (EPS) increased 24 percent to $3.62. On a GAAP basis, diluted EPS increased 21 percent to $3.25.
HP's interactive stock chart includes information about the company's share performance.
Please visit our annual report and 10K to view HP revenue by business segment and by region.
1 Following the GRI G3 Guidelines: Direct economic impacts are often measured as the value of transactions between the reporting organization and its stakeholders, while indirect economic impacts are the results—sometimes non-monetary –—of the transaction. (See PDF, page 13.)
2 Gartner: Conceptualizing ‘Green' IT and Data Center Power and Cooling Issues, September 2007.