Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. reported fiscal fourth-quarter profits that beat consensus estimates, but the company’s stock lost more than 2% after hours as revenues fell just short of expectations.

Revenue of $7.35 billion was up 2% from a year ago, or flat adjusted for constant currency. That was below the $7.38 billion that analysts expected. Shares initially fell nearly 9% but recovered after the company’s call with analysts, in which executives attributed much of the sales weakness to supply chain constraints. “Revenue growth was above normal sequential seasonality,” said Chief Executive Antonio Neri.

Neri said the company ended fiscal 2021 with “record demand for our edge-to-cloud portfolio.” Companywide, orders were up 16% from a year ago at the end of the fiscal year, with backlogs running at “high historical levels,” he said. While supply chain constraints pressured results, he said “market demand remains strong.” Throughout the call with analysts, executives focused on orders rather than sales as evidence that demand is strong, saying the company recorded record orders in its intelligent edge, high-performance computing and artificial intelligence businesses.

“The demand environment has been incredibly strong and accelerated in the second half of the year, which gives us important momentum headed into next year,” Chief Financial Officer Tarek Robbiati said in a statement. However, on the call with analysts, he echoed Neri’s cautions about supply chain unpredictability. “Supply chains are very dynamic and we expect component shortages to last for the next few quarters,” he said.

Earnings of 52 cents a share were up from 41 cents a year earlier and ahead of consensus expectations of 48 cents. Cash flow from operations was $3 billion, which included $2.2 billion in after-tax proceeds from the settlement of a legal dispute with Oracle Corp. Free cash flow of $1.6 billion rose $1 billion from a year ago.

HPE executives maintained that the company is in the right place. “HPE is at the center of several compelling megatrends: the explosion of data at the edge, cloud experience everywhere and the need to extract value from data,” said Neri said.

HPE’s HPC and AI segment edged up to revenue of $1 billion, which was below expectations, but the company said it’s on track for compound annual growth of 8% to 12% in that business through fiscal 2022. Orders grew 50% in that segment and operating profit margins expanded 10%.

Revenue in the “intelligent edge” segment was $815 million, up 4%, and 13% for the year. Compute revenues rose 1%, to $3.2 billion, and storage revenue grew 3%, to $1.3 billion, but orders increased 10% for the year.

In the storage segment, all-flash array revenue grew 7%, led by its Primera composable storage line. The Nimble all-flash array line grew 4% with what the company described as “strong momentum” in disaggregated hyperconverged infrastructure, growing at a double-digit rate.

For the full year just ended, HPE recorded revenue of $27.8 billion, up 3%. The closely watched annualized revenue run rate, which reflects the success of as-a-service sales, grew 36% to $796 million. In a blog post, Neri said as-a-service orders jumped 61% from last year.

HPE issued first-quarter 2022 guidance of diluted EPS in the range of 42 to 50 cents. For the full year, it reaffirmed earlier guidance of diluted net earnings per share of $1.96 to $2.10.

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