China’s Huawei Technologies Co. aims to overtake Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc. within the next five years and become the world’s biggest Smartphone maker with a market share of over 25%, a senior executive said.
“We want to be the number-one smartphone maker in the world. It’s a long distance race, and we have the patience,” said Huawei director Richard Yu, who heads the company’s consumer electronics business, at the Converge technology conference hosted by The Wall Street Journal and founders in Hong Kong.
Huawei is also pushing further into new technologies such as virtual reality. Based on its partnership with Alphabet Inc.’s Google, which provides a VR software platform, the company plans to release a new VR-compatible smartphone this fall, Mr. Yu said.
Shenzhen-based Huawei, along with Sweden’s Ericsson, is one of the world’s largest suppliers of telecom networking gear. Over the past few years, the Chinese company has also been growing rapidly as a handset maker.
Yu’s latest comments come as Huawei is narrowing the gap with Samsung and Apple in the global Smartphone market, where overall growth has been slowing. In the first quarter, Huawei’s Smartphone sales volume increased 59% from a year earlier, while Samsung’s sales remained almost flat and Apple’s sales declined 14%, according to research firm Gartner Inc. Huawei’s market share in the quarter rose to 8.3%, behind Samsung’s 23% and Apple’s 15%.