Only through quality can China conquer the global market

Huawei's Hu Houkun attributes his company's success to persistent technological progress, an open attitude to cooperation and better management.

Huawei spent 40.8 billion yuan ($6.6 billion), 14 percent of its revenue, on research in 2014. Over 45 percent of its 150,000 staff work in R&D. New ideas such as mobile Internet, cloud computing and big data have helped Chinese companies to catch up with (and even overtake) their foreign counterparts.

Huawei filed 3,442 patent applications in 2014, followed by US chip maker Qualcomm. ZTE, another Chinese telecom systems developer, took third place.

"In the personal computer business, it took Kingsoft 26 years to accumulate 300 million users. We collected the same number of mobile users in only three years," said Ge Ke, Kingsoft CEO.

The tide of new technology will bring a new wave of innovation to China, Ge said, and with it more Chinese brands will rise to global prominence.

Culture, community, social responsibility

Chinese firms abroad now actively work to adapt to local culture and engage communities. They take social responsibility seriously. Neglect of local conditions has been fatal to many businesses.

Wu Wei, vice general manager of energy equipment producer Tebian Electric Apparatus Stock Co (TBEA), said her company, with training centers in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, employs and trains many local workers in every overseas project. About 95 percent of the employees at a TBEA research base in India are locals, and most were trained in China.

To increase its global profile, white goods producer Hisense sponsors the Australian Open tennis tournament, German football club FC Schalke 04 and Formula 1. Yingli Solar, a leading solar panel producer, has twice been a sponsor of the FIFA World Cup.

As internationalization proceeds, many obstacles remain to be cleared, including previous bad investment decisions and discrimination. One of the greatest challenges is the established stereotype of low prices and poor quality, according to Wang.

"To dismiss this stereotype, competent enterprises in key sectors should stand out with high-quality goods and services, and engage in more global events," said Wang.