Excellent year for Huawei thanks to smartphones

From 3 million to 100 million devices

Back in 2010, Huawei only sold 3 million smartphones, but how things have changed. Now, in 2015, the company has surpassed 100 million devices sold. Its more sophisticated models are popular in the West, while its cheaper (and more basic) smartphones are popular in the emerging countries.

American market research firm IDC‘s numbers on the third quarter reveal a lot: smartphone sellers shipped an additional 6.8 % worldwide, while Huawei’s shipping numbers grew 61 %. That is nearly 10 times above average.

The weaker Chinese smartphone market, which is increasingly a replacement market, has been offset with a stronger export. Excellent worldwide sales also mean the company surpassed its own forecast, which stood at a 20 % increase at the start of the year, after 2014 resulted in a 21 % increase compared to the year before.

Plenty of investments into research and development

Huawei credits its innovative nature for its spectacular rise. To illustrate that point: Huawei invested 14.2 % of its turnover into research and development, spread over 16 specialized research facilities all across the globe.

In the first half of 2015, Huawei had an 18 % operational margin on its devices, slightly below the 18.3 % from the semester prior to that.