Hewlett-Packard's revenue will stabilize—but not grow—next year as the global tech company focuses on the commercial personal computer and tablet market, CEO Meg Whitman told CNBC on Wednesday.
HP also plans to make small inroads into the 3-D-printing market, Whitman said, adding that HP has developed technology to quicken the printing process.
"It's going to be a small business," Whitman said Wednesday on "Squawk on the Street." "We are at the beginning of a 3-D-printing market, not even the middle."
Sales growth at the enterprise group helped HP surpass analyst's expectations when the company posted earnings for its fourth quarter Tuesday, giving hope to its turnaround in the face of a weakening personal computer market. The stock beat per-share earnings estimates by a penny in the quarter.
In September, Dow Jones removed HP from its industrial average.
"We're going to get sharper," Whitman said. "We're going to get crisper. … We've got a long way to go in this turnaround."
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Next year is pivotal for the printing and computer company, she said. It will be the third year of its five-year turnaround plan, in which HP will revamp everything from motherboards to supply chains, Whitman said.
Asked about her conservative revenue forecasts, Whitman said the global economy lacked 'tailwinds' and pointed to a weak European Union economy, where HP generates 41 percent of its revenue. Overall, the company had $29.1 billion in revenue in its most recent quarter, beating expectations of $27.9 billion.
"We don't see any real game changers as far as the global economy is concerned," she said.
Whitman said she saw growth potential in workplace adoption of tablets, adding that the commercial tablet market is much less competitive than the consumer space. She cited HP's ElitePad 900 as a product that could have workplace demand and said that the commercial market wants tablets open to multiple operating systems.
"We will play there, but quite selectively," she said. "We're going to really see if we can't carve out a terrific position for ourselves in the commercial tablet business."
Asked about her plans for introducing 3-D printing into the business, Whitman said to expect announcements in 2014. She likened the new process to "model-making" rather than true printing.
(Watch: HP's 3-D printing opportunity)
Whitman said though the company's complete turnaround was still years off, its balance sheet showed signs of progress. For example, she said, the company had $9 billion of free cash flow last year.
"The balance sheet is much stronger," Whitman said. "The turnaround, on the balance sheet, has occurred."
(Read more: Hewlett-Packard, CEO Whitman ordered to defend securities class action)
Shortly after HP reported Tuesday, news broke that a California judge had ordered the company and Whitman to defend a class-action lawsuit brought by a group of shareholders.
Filed last year, the suit claims that Whitman made misleading statements about the acquisition of British software company Autonomy, which HP bought in 2011 for $11.1 billion, and that she misled investors about the write-down of HP assets worth about $9 billion.
—By CNBC's Jeff Morganteen. Follow him on Twitter at @jmorganteen and get the latest stories from "Squawk on the Street." Reuters contributed to this report.