On Prem
Networking orders surged, AI demand showed little sign of slowing, and HPE used the occasion to take a victory lap over its $14 billion Juniper bet
HPE just posted its biggest earnings beat since 2018, and CEO Antonio Neri wasted little time taking a victory lap for the company's $14 billion Juniper acquisition.The infrastructure giant posted record quarterly revenue of $10.7 billion on Monday, up 40 percent year over year, while networking revenue surged to $2.7 billion and AI systems orders reached $1.8 billion. Investors liked what they saw, sending shares sharply higher after the results landed.If there was a theme to Neri's remarks, it was that HPE's networking strategy has gone from an expensive gamble to an apparent success story. "The Juniper acquisition in my mind has been a home run," he said. “We believe the strategy is working.”
That is a notably different tone from the skepticism that greeted HPE's attempt to spend $14 billion on Juniper last year. The deal spent months stuck in regulatory limbo while investors debated whether HPE had overpaid. Those concerns are a little harder to hear now that networking orders are growing far faster than revenue and AI-fueled demand is piling into the backlog.
