Huawei signals intent in handset market

Chinese telecoms equipment vendor Huawei is set to become a player in mobile handsets market next year.

The company is likely to start by expanding its efforts with the CDMA450 standard, which is only used in a handful of places around the world. A move into the more mainstream flavours of CDMA - which in the current second generation of mobile telecoms competes with GSM - is then likely. Number two player China Unicom is that country's main CDMA champion.

However, Huawei won't only be looking at its home market, according to executive VP William Xu. "We hope we can do this business in a big way," he reportedly told the FT in an interview. "The international market is an extremely big opportunity for us."

Huawei's success is far from a given, though handset companies have long seen China as a both a good-value base for manufacturing and a major opportunity.

So far players such as DBTel have been known for low-margin devices, though Huawei is also reckoned to be setting up in time to roll out 3G phones from the second half of next year.

Neighbouring Taiwan has also made a splash in the mobile arena, though it is better-known for contract manufacturers who make bespoke devices, often directly for operators in the West, such as the Microsoft-based SPV sold by Orange and O2's xda handheld.