Chinese infrastructure giant Huawei said its net profit more than doubled in 2009 thanks to rising sales, favorable exchange rates and lucrative contracts in new markets like North America.
The company made $2.68 billion on $21.8 billion in sales, helped along by a $1.01 billion gain on favorable currency exchange rates.
The deployment of 3G networks in China played a large role in the company’s growth, said CEO Ren Zhengfei in Huawei’s annual report.
Huawei also has made significant inroads into the North American market. The company’s highest-profile contracts include Clearwire’s WiMAX network and a recently-inked HSPA+ contract with Canadian operator Sasktel.
Huawei declined to break down sales by geographic region but did provide some insight into which technologies are growing the fastest. The company said sales from UMTS- and WiMAX-based technologies rose “rapidly” while GSM- and CDMA-based solutions rose “steadily.”
Aside from its infrastructure solutions, Huawei said it shipped 35 million mobile broadband devices and more than 30 million handsets in 2009. The company said its market share of CDMA handsets ranked third worldwide and second in China.
Huawei wants to increase its sales by 20 percent over 2010. The company said key growth areas will be mobile broadband, fixed mobile convergence, business operation support systems and smart devices.
Filed Under: Infrastructure