Huawei plans to triple smartphone sales in 2012

Huawei Technologies, China’s largest phone equipment maker, said it aims to triple sales of smartphones to 60 million this year, with about 30-40% of the year’s shipments going to China, Bloomberg reported. Huawei hopes its sales will be boosted this year by the Ascend D quad handset, a smartphone unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that the company said will cost 15-20% less than “comparable phones.” Huawei plans to sell the model in all major markets by next quarter and release a version that works on the faster long-term evolution technology in the second half of 2012. The company is also beefing up its cloud computing and small-business networks in an effort to boost its total revenue to US$100 billion over five to 10 years.