Hong Kong (CNN) -- Quick question: Who is the world's third biggest smartphone maker?
BlackBerry? Guess again. HTC? Nope. It's Huawei.
Yes, it's a paltry 5% of
the global market, but the Chinese company that made its name selling
telecom equipment is making a big push into the already crowded global
smartphone market.
I saw that ambition first
hand at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year.
Huawei ads were posted all over the airport to greet the throngs of
international conference-goers. The company also occupied a huge booth at the venue positioned just across from Samsung.
But just how big does Huawei -- the smartphone maker -- want to get?
At company headquarters
in Shenzhen in southern China, I talked to Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei's
Consumer Business Group. He told me his division hopes to boost its
mobile business revenue from $7.5 billion to $9 billion this year.
"Last year, we shipped
out 32 million smartphones in quantity and this year we hope we will
ship out 50 to 60 million smartphones worldwide," he said. "We are
growing."
The market priority for
Huawei's Consumer Business Group is China, followed by Europe and Japan.
But -- when it comes to smartphones -- it's not ruling out the U.S. market despite the recent back and forth about Huawei's commitment there.
In the U.S., the name
Huawei is widely regarded with suspicion. Lawmakers are worried that
Huawei products can be used as a hidden channel for Chinese spies and
cyber hackers -- a charge that Huawei has denied.
Despite the trust issues
and the fact that many Americans can't even pronounce the name of the
company, Huawei has sold and will continue to sell its phones in America
under the Huawei brand.
"Gradually, step by
step, more and more people will trust Huawei," said Yu. "I think with a
brand, the most important thing is trust."
Huawei prides itself on
its investment in research and development -- 70,000 of its 150,000
employees are in R&D -- as well as its high-end products like the
$500 Ascend P2, which is billed as the "world's fastest 4G LTE
smartphone."
Yu told me his personal
favorite is the Ascend D2, Huawei's $600 flagship smartphone that is
water-resistant -- a point famously made by Yu when he posted a photo of himself swimming with the smartphone on his Sina Weibo account.
But Huawei is more
widely known for its $100 (Y-300) smartphone -- a cut-price device that
Josh Ong of The Next Web says is the company's competitive advantage and
branding bane.
"Huawei is going to be able to execute on smartphones at lower costs than some of its international competitors," he said.
"It doesn't have the cachet or consumer loyalty that Apple and Samsung do."
My colleague Dayu Zhang
in Beijing offered this on-the-ground Chinese consumer perspective: "To
me and my friends, Huawei is more like a brand of low-end, cheap
smartphones.
"(Such) Chinese brands
are popular among the 'ant tribe community,' which refers to young
people who come to the city for a better job but got stuck with low-paid
jobs and high costs to live in the city. In their eyes, these Chinese
smartphones are a lot cheaper than big brands like the iPhone and almost
as good."
Huawei has a reputation for making smartphones that are just good enough. But that's not good enough for Huawei.
To upgrade its image,
the company says it will bypass expensive branding campaigns and splashy
ads to focus on innovation to generate viral, word-of-mouth
recommendations.
And that will take time.
"Rome was not built in a
day," said Yu. "We have the ambition to be the best -- to have the best
products and be the best solution provider."
Would you buy a Huawei smartphone? Perhaps, if that's what you're after. They're "good enough."
Would you want to buy one? Not yet.
And that's the question Huawei has its designs on,
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