Last month, IDC named Huawei as the number four smartphone manufacturer in Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) with nearly 30% year-on-year growth between Q3 2013 to Q3 2014. Today, the company released its 2014 financial so we finally see how many phones it takes to secure a top five spot in Asia.
The company reports that smartphone sales for 2014 pushed 75 million units, a 45% increase compared to the year previous. In the mid- to high-end space, where Huawei has pitched the likes of the P7, smartphone shipments rose by 18%. Total sales revenue increased 30% year-on-year to $12.2 billion, marking the first time Huawei’s sales revenue has surpassed $10 billion USD.
Huawei also notes that brand awareness is up from 2013, too. The company cites research firm IPSOS in reporting that brand recognition across 32 countries now sits at 65%, up from 52% last year.
Though brand recognition may be up, Huawei has yet to crack the top five for global smartphone shipments. For Q32014, IDC put Xiaomi and Lenovo in third and fourth place for worldwide smartphone marketshare, while Huawei was lumped in the the 49% of “others” on the table. The company has spent the last few years focusing on the mid- to high-end space and says 2015 will be about “strategic deployment” for its consumer business group. This will include leveraging opportunities in new markets like IoT as well as automotive networking. The company is also hoping to ship 100 million smartphones.
This year may also mean a bit more of Huawei here at home. Job postings that date back to October surfaced online this week revealing the company’s plans for a new Kitchener-Waterloo office. In October of last year, Huawei said it planned to invest half a billion dollars in Ontario over the next five years, creating 325 jobs. Speaking to MobileSyrup, Huawei Canada’s VP of Corporate Affairs said there had been no formal decisions about a Canadian office and labeled the process as exploratory.
On the hardware front, things are a bit quieter. The last phone Huawei launched in Canada was the Ascend Mate 2, which was announced at CES in Janaury 2014 but didn’t arrive in Canada until August. The company has yet to launch the P7 or its Honor line in Canada.
[source]Huawei[/source]
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