Stimulated by the big demand brought by the rapid economic development, HP plans to speed up its expansion in other Chinese cities, apart from Beijing and Shanghai, and will hire more staff in China in the coming months.

Adrian Koch, senior vice president of HP's Personal Systems Group for Asia Pacific, has told local media that the company's new growth point lies in other places outside of the big Chinese cities. He also disclosed the company had already increased its network in China from 20 cities in 2003 to 347 cities in 2006. He added that to reach this goal of expansion, they would hire about 200 more employees in China. By the end of August this year, HP had 8000 employees in China.

According to Koch, the Palo Alto based HP has a sales network covering 430 cities in China, which has gone beyond the company's goal of carrying on business in 420 Chinese cities. He also cited the data of research company IDC, saying that HP had taken up 13.4% of the PC market share in China.

At present, HP's PC retailers in China include Suning and Gome.