Huawei sees little opportunity to do business with U.S. operators in the coming two years, but the Chinese equipment vendor seems more confident about its relationships with operators in the UK, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
Despite ongoing security concerns in the UK and at European Union level, Li Sanqi, chief technology officer of Huawei's carrier network business, told the Journal that it is building its second home in Europe, "and the UK is a major part of it."
In September 2012, Huawei announced plans to spend a total of $2 billion (€1.53 billion) on research and development as well as component procurement in the U.K. over five years. Earlier this month, Huawei opened its new UK headquarters in Reading.
Huawei has certainly been extremely visible in Europe of late. In a recent interview with Pocket-Lint, Kevin Ho, president of the company's handset product line, insisted that the company wants to work with Nokia and Microsoft on the Windows Phone platform, although Ho conceded that the platform is "difficult to sell" compared to Apple's iPhone and Android devices.
Then Richard Yu, chief executive of Huawei's mobile division, told the Daily Telegraph that it wants to be one of the world's three biggest mobile phone brands by the end of 2015.
The Chinese vendor certainly comes out with all guns blazing when faced with challenges. "If you were anyone else, you should be scared," Carphone Warehouse Chairman Charles Dunstone told the Telegraph.
For more:
- read this WSJ article (sub. req.)
- read this Telegraph article
- read this Pocket-Lint article
Related Articles:
Huawei challenges rivals with 'world's slimmest' smartphone
Huawei cranks up hype ahead of possible Ascend P6 unveiling
Strategy Analytics: Samsung dominates Chinese smartphone market in Q1
ABI: Huawei, Sony Mobile gain ground in Q1's global handset rankings
Huawei ships 32M smartphones in 2012, misses its expectations
ZTE won't follow Huawei with consumer device brand campaign
Huawei releases Ascend P2 smartphone