Huawei seeks $30b in deals in 2009

Huawei predicts it will close infrastructure deals worth up to $30 billion in 2009, despite industry expectations that the fixed-line and mobile infrastructure markets will decline during the year.

The Chinese vendor signed just over $23 billion in contracts last year. Xu Wenwei, Huawei's chief marketing officer, said in an interview with the Financial Times that the company expects to grow substantially this year, even as other vendors such as Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson are predicting a slowdown in the market. "We remain quite confident of continued and robust growth this year," he said.
News first circulated in January that Huawei was bullish on its prospects for 2009. The $30 billion figure was first reported in the Chinese media, including China Daily, which cited an internal email sent to Huawei's employees by the company's chairwoman, Sun Yafang. Xu's comments confirm Huawei's projections.

A good deal of growth for Huawei will come from China's 3G infrastructure projects this year. China Mobile alone expects to spend nearly $9 billion on TD-SCDMA networks. It missed out on the recent Verizon LTE contract to Alcatel-Lucent.

For more:
- see this Financial Times
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