Huawei Technologies, the world’s second-largest mobile network equipment maker by revenue, is stepping up its drive for sales in the consumer handset market.
Echoing similar moves by other handset makers, Huawei on Wednesday launched the Vision, a smartphone that gives users access to cloud computing services. It comes after the launch last week of a cloud-based mobile operating system by Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce company, which will provide similar services.
Huawei broke into the world league top 10 handset makers by number of devices sold in 2008, according to Gartner, the research company, but the Chinese company trails well behind Nokia, Samsung, LG, Apple and Research in Motion. Huawei sold 7m handsets in the first quarter of 2011, compared with Nokia’s 108m.