A Huawei chief executive has revealed that the company hopes to see sales growing by over 30% every year making it possible to overtake Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s sale numbers in 3 years and market leader Samsung’s by 2024.
At the moment, the Chinese company is the third largest smartphone manufacturer worldwide, behind rivals Apple and Samsung. Although last year saw a spectacular 44% increase in sales which defied even Huawei’s own expectations, Huawei still sells less than half of the number of smartphones Apple and Samsung sell. While Huawei shipped 108 million smartphones in 2015, Apple shipped over 231.5 million and Samsung more than 317.2 million.
During an interview at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Richard Yu, chief executive of Huawei’s consumer business group, stated that the current growth is “sustainable” and that the company is expecting another 30% bump in global smartphone sales this year. This would mean the company will ship over 150 million devices this year.
So far most of Huawei’s growth has relied on Western European and Chinese markets. The company has had a hard time breaking into the U.S. market because the U.S. government effectively banned its products due to concerns about cyber-security. The company ensured a market presence in the U.S. by working together with Google and manufacturing the Google’s Nexus 6P smartphone.
Yu said that although the company were “late” to the U.S. market, they still hope to see a big rise in sales levels there over the next few years. Although most of their devices are sold independently, that is without a contract with a phone services provider, Huawei is in talks with several U.S. carriers to bring its smartphones to their tariff plans. The company hopes this will help make their devices much more popular in the US.
Another new market Huawei is keen to break into is virtual reality (VR) devices. Yu also disclosed that the Chinese company will be releasing several VR devices in 2016, including a headset and a flagship phone that will support the technology.
Many technology companies are pinning their hopes on virtual reality products which they see as a good potential driver for new growth on the market. VR devices could have a dramatic influence on how consumers use technology so tech companies from Samsung to HTC are eager to invest in developing what could be the next big thing in tech.
Yu declined to give more details about what Huawei are planning to do but said that the company are working together with “ecosystem partners to bring the best content and services to its devices”. He also said that his company are investing in VR products because “virtual reality changes people’s lives”.
