May 19--While reporting a decline in sales and profit last quarter, tech giant Hewlett-Packard said Tuesday that it will continue to cut costs -- and lay off 6,400 more workers this year -- as executives outlined a strategy that increasingly focuses on selling software and services along with its traditional lines of printers, PCs and servers.

CEO Mark Hurd and other executives said it's too early to declare a turning point in the global recession. Instead they offered a revised, and slightly gloomier, forecast for the year, along with the observation that business seemed "less volatile" than in earlier quarters.

"It's roughly going to be the same for the rest of the year," Hurd told Wall Street analysts on a conference call, adding that he doesn't expect big customers to increase spending before the final months of the year, when they begin to plan for 2010.

HP reported earning $1.7 billion in profit for the quarter that ended April 30, down 17 percent from the same quarter last year. Total sales were $27.4 billion, which was 3 percent lower than a year ago. The company said it expects revenue for the year will be 4 percent to 5 percent lower than in 2008; three months ago it said the decline might range from 2 percent to 5 percent.

Investors and analysts were watching closely for indications that HP is seeing any improvement in the global economy. Other tech giants have reported encouraging signs in recent weeks: Cisco said the decline in sales of networking gear appeared to be leveling off, while Intel reported that chip demand was improving.

But the results for Palo Alto-based HP are in some ways a broader indicator of tech spending by consumers and businesses, big and small, around the world. With annual sales of $118 billion, HP is the world's biggest tech company, peddling everything from laptops and printers to big servers and data storage systems, commercial software and multimillion-dollar service contracts.

Nearly two thirds of HP's revenue comes from outside the United States. For its latest quarter, HP said its sales fell in most of Europe and Asia, though it reported some improvement in the United States and China.

Sales were down in all of its major hardware divisions, even though HP increased its share of the PC market overall. Long the world leader in PC sales, HP surpassed Dell in the United States for the first time in several years. But Hurd said revenue was down in part because customers were buying cheaper models.