Huawei sees strong surge in earnings

Chinese telecoms and IT giant Huawei Technologies was subject to some unwanted attentions from the US National Security Agency in recent years, but it does not seem to have affected the bottom line.

And in response to the NSA revelations, China has demanded a clear explanation from the US government. Meanwhile, its happy to continue growing.

The telecoms equipment maker has reported a 34 per cent increase in annual profits, its fastest growth for four years, with net profits at 21 billion yuan (€2.47 billion), up from 15.6 billion yuan (€1.83 billion) the previous year.

Revenue is expected to grow 10 per cent this year and it has targeted a revenue of €51 billion by 2018, almost double the record reaped last year when it became the world’s third-biggest smartphone maker.

There was a lot of speculation last week that the group would launch its new Huawei Ascend P7 model at a launch event in Paris on May 7th.

"Huawei has never been more closely connected to the world than it is now," said the company's current chief executive Eric Xu (the position rotates).

“This level of connectivity has two implications. First, ICT technologies have been deployed in more than 170 countries and regions, helping more than three billion people connect to the world, communicate anytime, anywhere, and easily acquire and share information.”

Xu said the connected world was reshaping politics, economics, business, and production.

Driving the performance was strong demand from China, which is expanding its 4G mobile network technology, and the country accounted for one-third of the company’s total revenue.

Huawei also recently expanded into the market for wearable technology, introducing its hybrid Talkband smart device in February.

On the spying story, Xu said: “Nobody has ever said that Huawei has the capacity to spy on the US network and things like that ... for a business organisation, no one would be so unwise as to do such a thing.”