Behind Huawei's handset numbers

Huawei made an eye-catching improvement in the handset rankings in the last quarter, but it has still fallen short of its own hefty expectations.

The Chinese firm ranked no. 3 in smartphones and no. 5 overall in IDC’s latest quarterly survey of mobile phone sales. It shipped 10.8m smartphones in the fourth quarter, 90% more than it sold in Q4 2011, and 15.8m phones in total, 13.7% higher.

But even though it improved full-year sales by 9.3% to $7.8 billion,  the consumer division still missed its full-year target of $9 billion. And it looks like it will struggle to meet the $15 billion sales goal for 2015 that the unit set last year.

Richard Yu, the head of Huawei’s consumer business, told Chinese business news site yicai.com operating profit was up 40% but “we missed the target we set at the beginning of the year.”

And while Huawei's Ascend smartphone brand is getting traction, Yu’s team appears still focused on the ODM and operator white labal markets.

One un-named executive is quoted as saying “we need to clearly recognise that commercial success is the key, instead of illusory pursuit of the so-called ‘global brand.’”

For all this, let's bear in mind that Huawei only made the top end of the table in the final quarter of 2012. It ranks outside the top five in both smartphones and handsets for the full year. There's a lot riding on how it stacks up in this quarter.