But the high-tech giant, which has a huge presence in both the consumer and commercial print markets, remained vague on what effect the cuts would have  on its UK operations or on HP Indigo.

Chief executive Mark Hurd, who replaced Carly Fiorina earlier this year, said that the job cuts would focus on support services such as IT, human resources and finance, and that the firm would aim to cut duplication of work.

He said that the majority of these functions were based in the US, but gave no figures for the redundancies by region. Newspaper reports have suggested that hundreds of UK jobs will go.

HP, which has a worldwide workforce of 150,000, expects to make cost savings of at least 520m in its 2006 fiscal year. Pre-tax restructuring charges will be around 630m.