BEIJING, March 19 -- Hewlett-Packard Co, the world's largest maker of personal computers, has announced an 8 billion U.S. dollars stock buyback, its largest ever, to reward investors as the company's market share and earnings increase.

    The repurchase, approved by the board on Thursday, comes on top of its current plan. As of Jan. 31, the company had 3.3 billion U.S. dollars remaining from an existing 6 billion U.S. dollars buyback unveiled in August, Hewlett-Packard said in a regulatory filing.

    Under Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd, the company reclaimed the PC market lead last year after trailing Dell Inc for three years. Hurd cut jobs and closed offices to pare costs so he could under-price Dell even as he boosted profit margins. Hewlett-Packard last month said first-quarter earnings rose 26 percent after holiday shoppers bought low-priced notebooks, Bloomberg News said.

    The Palo Alto, California-based company repurchased 2.3 billion U.S. dollars of shares in the quarter ended Jan. 31. The buybacks are also aimed at offsetting dilution from shares issued for employee benefit plans.

    Hewlett-Packard has been stepping up its buybacks over the past year. Before this, the highest repurchase was the August program, which topped a US$4 billion authorization in August 2005.

    Investors pressured technology companies for larger buybacks after earnings improved from a slump earlier this decade that was triggered by the collapse of spending by Internet companies.

    International Business Machines Corp increased its planned share buybacks by 4 billion U.S. dollars in October.

    (Source: Shanghai Daily)¡¡