Hewlett-Packard (HP) will speed up its expansion moves into China's smaller cities and rural areas this year as it hopes to overtake Chinese market leader Lenovo Group in various regional markets.

"We're pretty optimistic of our chances to become No1 in one of the PC categories in China in the next few quarters because of this effort," said Adrian Koch, senior vice-president for HP's personal systems group in the Asia-Pacific and Japan.

"We're moving into tier three, four and five cities because we're finding the consumers and businesses in these small markets want a choice besides the local brands," Koch said.