India, Thailand help Huawei to register 32% growth in 2016

Huawei India along with Thailand played a major role in the global annual revenue growth of 32% at $75.1 billion in 2016, said Huawei India CEO Jay Chen.

In an email interaction with DH, Chen said the company’s carrier, enterprise, and consumer business groups (BGs) helped it achieve a good year-on-year growth. “The group’s annual net profits were $5.3 billion in 2016, an increase of 0.4%,” he said.

Chen said the Indian market is one of the key drivers in the Asia Pacific region. “Huawei maintained its growth momentum in the Asia Pacific region and achieved CNY67,500 million in revenue, up 36.6% year-on-year,” he said.

According to Chen, India is a key focus market for Huawei and one of the key growth drivers in the Asia Pacific. “We have been making investments in India operations, including setting up of the Global Service Centre in Bengaluru in 2016, starting local manufacturing of smartphones in partnership with Flex and investments in offline retail expansion, among others,” he said.

He also pointed out that with the 4G network rollout, sustained growth in smartphones, and Huawei’s growing capabilities in enterprise and industry solutions, the company will continue to witness strong growth across all its businesses in India.

On the mobile front, with its increasingly innovative products and growing global recognition, Huawei  shipped 139 million smartphones during 2016, and reported $25.9 billion in annual revenue.

“We have already made localisation in India with Honor Holly 2 and Honor 6X production at our Chennai manaufacturing facility. We have also developed local R&D customisation by adding 14 Indian languages and added SoS feature in the phone,” he said.

According to Counterpoint Research’s Neil Shah, Huawei sold 6.5 lakh mobile units in India during 2016. “Their online only strategy didn’t work out well last year. This year, Huawei started offline, and it is really picking up,” Shah said.