GLOBAL telecom equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co. expects revenue from its enterprise division to increase eightfold over the next three to five years as it takes advantage of new growth opportunities emerging from cloud computing, a senior company executive told reporters.
In a departure from its main focus on network infrastructure, the Shenzhen-based company said it is reorganizing its business around four major areas -- network infrastructure, enterprise business, devices, and other. Enterprise sales are expected to double to US$4 billion in 2011 and hit US$15 billion in three to five years, said William Xu, executive vice president of Huawei and president of Huawei Enterprise Business.
Huawei is the world s second-largest vendor of telecom equipment behind Sweden s Telefon Ericsson and generated revenue of US$28 billion in 2010. The group, which has around 110,000 staff globally, counts European telecom and mobile companies such as BT Group, Vodafone Group, Telefonica, Deutsche Telecom and France Telecom among its customers, according to Xu.
Xu said Huawei will grow its enterprise business predominantly through partnerships rather than mergers and acquisitions, although he said the company has completed several small-scale acquisitions in Europe, including chip start-up M4S.
Huawei hopes to grow its customer base by targeting small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as large corporations and telecom operators. Xu said the company expects to grow the enterprise business across the whole of Europe, with no specific country focus.
But the enterprise strategy is a global one, and not just constrained to Europe, said Xu. He said the key to growth in enterprise was ensuring the company s products were recognized by customers and end users, and that some of the company s devices have already been accepted globally.
This may help the company to gain a foothold in the United States, a market where it has struggled to date thwarted by U.S. anxieties over national security.
(SD-Agencies)
