One area of growth he has already identified for HP is in software, which currently represents 3 percent of revenue for the company, he said. "But I think we can do a lot better," he said. "We feel that with software we can add a lot of value and strength to what we can do for our customers." HP would like to double or even triple the share of software revenue it brings in, he said.

In the fourth quarter, software revenue grew 1 percent year over year to $974 million, HP said.

HP is continuing to invest in ways to boost its services revenue, but that hasn't paid off just yet. Services revenue increased just 0.4 percent to $9 billion for the quarter, it said.

Its storage and servers business did the best, with 25 percent growth in the quarter, reaching $5.3 billion in revenue. The personal systems group's revenue grew 4 percent to $10.3 billion in the quarter, and the imaging and printing group was up 8 percent to $7 billion.

Apotheker took the helm of HP after Mark Hurd, the former CEO, resigned in a sexual harassment scandal. He settled with the former HP contractor who lodged the complaint and went on to accept the role of co-president at HP rival Oracle.