Huawei is winning the battle of mobile device shipments against ZTE, shipping 12 million more units than its domestic rival in the first half of the year.
Both Chinese vendors are prioritizing device sales as a key driver of earnings growth for 2011, however Huawei stole the crown with shipments up 42% to 72 million units in the first six months, compared to ZTE’s 60 million. Huawei’s handset shipments enjoyed a 100% growth rate during the period, fueled by higher smartphone sales – particularly Android units.
The growth fueled an 11% rise in revenue during the period and took Huawei to an operating profit of 12.4 billion yuan ($1.94 billion).
However, the focus on mobile devices isn’t detracting from the firm’s core network equipment market. It deployed 130 LTE-capable SingleRAN networks globally in 1H11, while its Enterprise Business division had expanded operations to 100 countries by end-June. New cloud computing services were also available in 20 countries globally, fueled by medical, education and e-government services.
Financial chief Cathy Meng states the first half performance generated “stable and robust” growth that leaves the firm “confident in achieving our annual sales target of 199 billion yuan.”