Huawei sales rise 30 percent in H1 2015

Chinese hardware manufacturer Huawei has announced its results for the first half of 2015, with the company generating revenue of 175.9 billion yuan ($28.3 billion), a year-on-year increase of 30 percent, with operating margins of 18 percent.

The company said all three of its business units -- enterprise, consumer, and carrier -- experienced growth in the six months until June.

"Huawei's mid-range and high-end smartphones ... have made solid progress, helping us guarantee quality and sustainable growth in the consumer business," Huawei's chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou said.

"Thanks to the extensive application of our cloud computing, storage, agile network, and other flagship products and solutions in the smart city, finance, education, and ISP markets in and outside of China, our growth in the enterprise business began to pick up in the first half of this year."

The Shenzhen-headquartered company said it also invested in research and development for software-defined networking, cloud computing, and 4G network construction throughout China. Last week, Huawei announced that it had begun incorporating 4.5G and 5G into its small cell products, such as Micro, Pico, LampSite, and Book RRU.

"Rapidly growing MBB [mobile broadband] networks are currently made possible at the cost of deploying a large number of small cells to densify cellular networks, creating serious inter-cell interference," Huawei's acting CEO Eric Xu said on Thursday.

"Huawei has applied 5G technology to small cells, transforming cellular interference into channels for data exchange. This innovative solution makes it possible to significantly improve air interface efficiency, without the need to add hardware to existing networks and enabling operators to build subscriber-oriented networks."

According to IDC data, Apple was the top smartphone vendor in China during Q1 2015, with a 14.7 percent market share, followed by Xiaomi, with 13.7 percent market share, and Huawei, with 11.4 percent. Huawei is similarly aiming for the third top spot in the US market.

Huawei said it would release H1 2015 sales figures for its smartphones later this week. Last year, Huawei shipped 138 million devices, including 75 million smartphones, a 7.8 percent increase over its 2013 results.

For 2014, profits were up a similar 33 percent, with full-year net profit of 27.9 billion yuan ($4.5 billion), while revenues rose 21 percent to $46.5 billion. Huawei fell just short of its target, having expected revenue to reach $47.26 billion for 2014.

The tech giant was last week reportedly granted approval by Indian government authorities to begin manufacturing its handsets in India, which could further increase sales figures for the company; the Indian smartphone market is expected to expand at a rate of 26 percent per annum for the next four years, according to a Sina news report.

Last month, the next Google Nexus handset was tipped to come from Huawei.

With AAP