Huawei, China’s largest vendor of telecommunications equipment, has forecast a surprise turnround in profit growth for 2012 despite an aggressive marketing push and expansion in the fiercely competitive mobile handset business.
The company expects net profit for last year to be about $2.4bn, according to Guo Ping, acting chief executive – a near 30 per cent jump on the 2011 figure, when the company experienced a sharp drop in profitability.
The strong figures come as a positive message from a company that is otherwise struggling to break free of suspicions in some western countries that it might be an agent of the Chinese state or military.