If you want an idea of just how attractive China is to OEMs, look no further than Huawei. The company, which is almost wholly focussed on the Chinese market, announced their unaudited earnings for 2013 yesterday. Profits are way up, and their growth goals are right on target. This from a company that has withdrawn from the most lucrative market for consumer devices, and instead looks to an emerging China for answers.
Huawei is finding those answers, too. Though we know them best for accusations of espionage, Huawei is much more than a smattering of low-end smartphones. They actually make quite a bit of telecom equipment for cellular towers and antennas, which is a prime point of growth for China’s future. As the company expands its network and data speeds, Huawei is in a good position to be a leader to provide hardware. That’s all prospective, though. Their recent earnings speak to a more direct relationship with consumers.
Huawei’s consumer device sales accounted for 23% of their overall revenue, up from 22% in 2012. Ttoal revenue was 240 billion Yuan, or nearly $40 billion. Unaudited revenue grew 8%, which is close to their internal goal of 10%, an annual goal they have for the next five years. Operating profit also grew slightly, rising to 29.4 billion Yuan from 28.6 billion in 2012. Huawei plans to release audited numbers around March-April.
For the #3 smartphone manufacturer in the world, these are excellent results. Couple their impressive sales of smartphones last year — 52 million devices shipped — with their resistance to the US market, and you have a true overseas success story. At CES this year, we sat in on Huawei’s press conference. At that event, they announced the very impressive Ascend Mate 2. Though they claim it will work in the US, they clearly have no plans to bring it here. With such impressive earnings, we can see why.
VIA: Reuters
