Hewlett-Packard enjoys 14 percent jump in quarterly profits

Hewlett-Packard's PC revenue in China rose as much as 40 percent while services revenue rose 8 percent.

The company had already announced preliminary results two weeks ago, which topped Wall Street estimates at that time , when it disclosed plans to acquire computer networking company 3Com for $2.7 billion.

The world's largest tech company said it earned a $2.4 billion profit on $30.8 billion in revenue, which amounted to earnings of 99 cents a share for the three months ending October 31. Hewlett-Packard's revenue, however, declined to $30.77 billion from $33.6 billion.

Hewlett-Packard's results contrasted with those of rival PC maker Dell, which last week reported lower-than-expected figures for roughly the same period. Dell's profit slumped 54 percent from a year earlier, to $337 million, while revenue fell 15 percent to $12.9 billion.

According to chief executive Mark Hurd, Hewlett-Packard's aggressive cost cutting measures have paid dividends and have put the company's other divisions on a solid footing for what's expected to be a better economy in 2010. The chief financial officer, Cathie Lesjak, also called the results "solid."

A Kaufman Brothers analyst, Shaw Wu, said Hewlett-Packard's report showed hints of recovery in a number of its business units, including PCs and printers.

"They're basically pointing to year-over-year growth in the January quarter," Wu said. "It's a good sign."