News release

HP Reaffirms 2001 Guidance

Company Comfortable With First Quarter Consensus EPS Estimate

Growth in Internet Infrastructure, Printing, Notebooks and Global Markets Offsets Softness In U.S. Retail PC Sales

PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 30, 2000

Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HWP) today reaffirmed its most recent financial guidance.

For the 2001 fiscal year ending Oct. 31, 2001, the company continues to expect to achieve revenue growth in the range of 15 to 17%, gross margin percentage in the range of 27.5 to 28.5%, and total operating expenses approximately 10 to 12% above FY 2000.

The company today also said it is comfortable with the current consensus analyst EPS estimate of $0.44 for the first fiscal quarter of 2001.

Carly Fiorina, HP chairman, president and chief executive officer, commented, "Unlike some of our competitors, HP is far more than a U.S.-centric consumer PC company, with less than 10% of our business in this segment. HP's global and product diversification is a significant competitive advantage which we believe will prove increasingly valuable as it serves to insulate us from the effects of individual market downturns.

"The fact is, we anticipated that the bulk of our growth in FY 2001 will be driven by strong momentum in our Internet infrastructure and printing businesses.

"We experienced growth of nearly 60% in our U.S. retail PC business in fiscal 2000, in part due to significant gains in market share as several large players exited the market. We foresaw a significantly different market environment in 2001, and accordingly planned for only single digit growth in our U.S. retail PC business. While softness in that market has been somewhat greater than we had originally anticipated, we are still experiencing growth over record fiscal 2000 sales levels and our sales this Thanksgiving week were ahead of last year."

About HP

Hewlett-Packard Company -- a leading global provider of computing and imaging solutions and services -- is focused on making technology and its benefits accessible to individuals and businesses through simple appliances, useful e-services and an Internet infrastructure that's always on.

HP has 88,500 employees worldwide and had total revenue from continuing operations of $48.8 billion in its 2000 fiscal year. Information about HP and its products can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.hp.com.

More information on this quarter's earnings is available at HP's Investor Information site at http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/investor/quarters/2000/q4overview.html.

This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. The words "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "will," "guidance" and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements. Risks include the ability of HP to retain and motivate key employees; the timely development, production and acceptance of new products and services and their feature sets; the challenge of managing asset levels, including inventory; the flow of products into third-party distribution channels; the difficulty of keeping expense growth at modest levels while increasing revenues; and other risks that are described from time to time in HP's Securities and Exchange Commission reports, including but not limited to the annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended Oct. 31, 1999, and subsequently filed quarterly reports. If any of these risks or uncertainties materialize or any of these assumptions prove incorrect, HP's results could differ materially from HP's expectations in these statements. HP does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.