Huawei posts profit rise of 34 percent

An assistant waits on a customer at a Huawei Technologies Co Ltd store in Beijing. Huawei said it spent 30.7 billion yuan ($4.95 billion) last year on research and development, about 13 percent of its revenue. Mark Ralston / AFP

Chinese telecom equipment giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd posted a net year-on-year profit increase of 34 percent in 2013, thanks to strong domestic demand for speedier mobile network equipment and a rising status as one of the world's major smartphone vendors.

However, Shenzhen-based Huawei suffered a significant setback in the North America market. Despite this, the company enjoyed robust development in both network and consumer businesses in Latin American countries, Huawei's sales in overall Americas slipped 1.3 percent year-on-year to reach 31.4 billion yuan ($5.1 billion), mainly because of the alleged "national security concerns" that prevented it from expanding to the United States.

The Americas contributed the least to Huawei's total sales, while Europe, the Middle East and Africa market was the biggest revenue engine for the company, delivering 84.7 billion yuan in sales. Huawei earned 84 billion yuan, an increase of 14.2 percent year-on-year, from the Chinese market.

Although Huawei is not listed, it has published annual reports since 2006 and aims to achieve a greater transparency. Huawei said on Monday that it gained 239 billion yuan in sales last year, up 8.5 percent year-on-year.

Huawei's net income rose to 21 billion yuan last year from 15.6 billion yuan in 2012. It became the biggest annual net profit rise for the Chinese company over the past five years.

Eric Xu, rotating and acting chief executive officer of Huawei, attributed Huawei's strong performance to the improved global macroeconomy, a better business environment and the effective execution of corporate strategy.