San Francisco, Feb 20: Hewlett-Packard on Thursday reported quarterly profit that rose 30 per cent as the computer and printer maker grew revenues twice as fast as rival Dell in desktop and notebook PCs for the second consecutive quarter. The strong results were seen as a further vindication of HP's 2002 acquisition of Compaq, especially given its profit on PCs and corporate servers, two areas that critics had expected would remain areas of competitive weakness in the combined company. HP also offered a forecast for the current quarter that was in line with current Wall Street expectations. "I would say on balance the merger has worked, and certainly they also did what they said they were going to do in terms of taking costs out, and now it's a question of growing their business, and I think they're doing it," said Rose Papp, research director at Roy Papp and Associates, which owns HP shares. HP, based in Palo Alto , California , said net income rose to USD 936 million, or 30 cents a share, in the fiscal first quarter ended Jan. 31, from USD 721 million, or 24 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 9 per cent to USD 19.5 billion from USD 17.9 billion, helped by currency effects. Adjusted for currency effects, total revenue rose 1 percent from a year earlier. "In what is a seasonally down quarter for our company, we met our commitments and delivered a solid performance," said chairman and chief executive Carly Fiorina on a conference call. Still, there were areas of concern, analysts said, citing slower growth in HP's profit engine, its imaging and printing group. Sales of printer supplies, such as ink cartridges, which fuel profits at HP's printer business, rose 8 per cent, a disappointing figure. "There were certainly bright spots but questions were raised," said Richard Chu, an analyst at SG Cowen. Whether (the supplies growth) was only a reflection of channel inventory reduction or some slowing in adoption rates, we have no idea at this stage. That number was disappointing. Operating profit in HP's enterprise services business, which sells servers and data storage gear and includes software, was USD 108 million, compared to a year-earlier operating loss of USD 82 million, HP said. Revenue for that group rose to USD 3.92 billion from USD 3.74 billion. HP's PC business, under fire from some for its slim profitability in recent quarters, saw revenue of USD 6.19 billion, up 20 per cent from a year earlier, and its operating profit improved to USD 62 million, compared with USD 33 million in the year-ago quarter. Bureau Report