Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ) shares are up marginally after Gartner and IDC released preliminary results for the fourth quarter showing HP and Dell Computers (NYSE: DELL) tied for the top market share. The computer manufacturer showed an overall growth of 14% with net revenues of $104.3 billion in fiscal 2007 with a large portion of its revenues coming from overseas. This has many investors and analysts believing that HP could be a recession-proof technology play.

HP has been very strong globally despite a slowing U.S. economy with 67% of its total revenues coming from outside the U.S. In the fourth quarter, the company saw Asia-Pacific revenues increase by 20%, EMEA by 19%, and Americas by 10%. Meanwhile, BRIC countries grew 37% year-over-year in the fourth quarter and accounted for 9% of total revenue.

The strongest revenues were seen in its personal systems group followed by its imaging and printing group and enterprise storage and services group. Meanwhile, the fastest growing group continues to be its software group, which saw growth of 74%; however, it only accounts for around 2% of total revenues. And HP’s service revenues came in second by growing around 12% to $2.3 billion.

CEO Mike Hurd is largely to credit for this huge turnaround for HP after cutting around 15,000 jobs and expanding into India and China. The strategy is expected to pay huge dividends this year as the U.S. economy is expected to grow just 1.9% versus 2.2% last year, according to the World Bank. Meanwhile, China is expecting to grow 10.8% and India is expected to grow around 8.4%.

Currently, HP’s stock is trading at around $44 per share with a market cap of around $112 billion. The drop in the stock is mostly due to macro-economic issues in the United States. This may be a great long-term buy-and-hold opportunity for value investors looking to take a position in a recession-proof company. In the end, HPQ is definitely a stock worth watching!

Related Companies
Dell Inc. (DELL)
EMC Corporation (EMC)
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (JAVA)