Chinese telecommunications equipment maker Huawei Technologies has published its annual financial report for 2008 and states that its global sales increased by 42.7% year-on-year to USD18.33 billion, which equals about CNY125 billion, while its net profit increased by 20% year-on-year to USD1.15 billion, about CNY7.9 billion.

Of the total USD18.33 billion revenue, 75% was from the overseas market. According to statistics provided by Huawei, in 2008, its sales in Europe increased 42% and the increase rate in North America was 58%.

Over the last year, Huawei gained 42 new WCDMA/HSPA contracts, topping the industry list with a 40.4% share of the total newly signed contracts worldwide. The accumulated number of its CDMA2000 1xEVDO corporate clients reached 110, which was also said to be tops in the world.

According to the latest report published by the market research firm Dell'Oro Group, during the year of 2008, Huawei's market share increased from 5% in the previous year to 12% while that of Alcatel-Lucent, currently the world's third largest telecom equipment maker, decreased from 16% to 14%. By the present development speed, Huawei may exceed Alcatel-Lucent in market share in 2009.

Xu Zhijun, executive vice president of Huawei, predicted that the contracted sales of the company may be over USD30 billion in 2009. He said that in 2009, the driving force for Huawei's development will be mainly from the 3G network deployment in the emerging markets, including China and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as the further cooperation with mainstream operators in Europe and North America.

Huawei has also gained strategic success in the American market and the company was selected by the U.S. telecom operator Cox Communications to be its end-to-end CDMA mobile network solutions provider.