Chinese telecom equipment and smartphone maker Huawei shipped more than 75 million smartphones in 2014, according to a year-end letter by the company’s Consumer Business Group (source in Chinese). This is a greater than 40% increase from last year, with 34.27 million sets sold during the first half of this year.
Huawei attributes the growth to breakthroughs in mid- and high-tier smartphone markets, led by flagship products such as the Mate 7. Sales of the company’s new Honor brand has increased more than 30-fold, according to the letter.
Huawei is experiencing rapid growth in the Middle East, Latin America, Southeast Asia, Africa and the South Asia-Pacific. It has set up more than 450 bricks-and-mortar stores and has nearly 30,000 sales counters around the world,.
Annual revenue from its consumer business group is expected to rise from US$9 billion in 2013 to over US$11.8 billion in 2014, a surge of over 30% year-on-year. The letter added that it is the first time the group has exceeded the 10 billion revenue threshold.
The company claims to be the world’s third largest smartphone manufacturer by shipment, while the gap between the company and industry leaders Apple and Samsung is narrowing, the letter reads.
Another internal email released by Huawei CEO Hu Houkun disclosed that total sales are expected to surge 15% year-on-year to US$46 billion this year (source in Chinese).
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Editing by Mike Cormack (@bucketoftongues)
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