Targets 20% revenue growth for 2010
Huawei has reported that its overall revenues rose 19% in 2009 on a year on year basis, a very decent performance given that 2008 was a relatively good year for most telco vendors, with 2009 turning into a hard slog.
The vendor remains bullish for the near future as well, with the CEO Ren Zhengfei saying the company is targeting 20% growth through 2010. Huawei said that its results are fully audited by KPMG.
To see how Huawei has outperformed the market in terms of revenue growth, consider that Ericsson showed flat revenues from 2008 to 2009, while Nokia Siemens Networks saw revenues fall 17.9% over the year. Alcatel-Lucent saw sales drop 10% during 2009, and predicted only slow growth over 2010.
Zhengfei said that the company generated a net profit of CNY 18.3 billion (USD 2.7 billion) and achieved an operating margin of 14.1% during 2009.
The company said that it has seen success for its focus on innovation, citing its Single-RAN platform as an example. Single-RAN, its multi-RF solution, has now been bought by 30 operators, Huawei said.
But can it sustain such a level of growth? It believes so, and here’s why.
“We see our business momentum continuing in 2010 and expect year-on-year revenue growth of 20% driven by increased deployments of mobile and fixed broadband networks, further take-up of customised smart devices, and higher demand for professional managed services.”
“You’re not going to out-Huawei Huawei,” said someone in another context recently. It appears that indeed, you’re not.