BEIJING: Chinese technology group Huawei grew its revenues almost one-third in 2016 and analysts say it is on track to become the world’s biggest smartphone maker within a few years. Net profits were CNY37.1 billion (US$5.3 billion), an increase of 0.4%. Group annual revenue was CNY521.6 billion (US$75.1 billion), an increase of 32% over 2015. The company’s annual spending on research and development reached CNY76.4 billion (US$11 billion) last year.
Eric Xu, Huawei Rotating CEO, said, “In 2016, Huawei maintained its strategic focus and achieved solid growth. As humanity continues to explore and make new breakthroughs in the digital world, digitization and increasing intelligence present huge business opportunities for all industries, and are also paving the road for new growth for the ICT industry. “We will stay customer-centric and will support digital transformation in all industries, in order to create value for our customers and to grow sustainably,” he added.
India continues to be one of the key focus areas for the company in the Asia-Pacific region. The company set up a global service centre in Bangalore last year. Jay Chen, CEO, Huawei India, told TOI,” With the 4G network rollout, sustained growth in smartphones, and our growing capabilities in enterprise and industry solutions, we continue to witness strong growth across all our businesses in India.” More than half of Huawei’s revenues come from its telecoms carrier arm, although this proportion has been falling over the past few years. Revenues from Huawei’s consumer business group, which includes smartphone sales, rose 44 per cent.Last year saw the company release a slew of high end phones such as the P9.
