While Huawei has been a ‘big deal’ in China for a long time, over the last few years they’ve seen a massive increase in interest throughout the rest of Asia and even Europe. This has largely been thanks to impressive devices like the Mate 7 and Mate 8, as well as the Nexus 6P and the Huawei P9. In the United States, Huawei’s marketshare remains pretty thin, but at least the Nexus 6P has helped break the ice a little. So what’s next for the company? In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Huawei director Richard Yu says they are aiming to overtake Apple and Samsung has the number one smartphone maker within the next 5 years.

While this is a very lofty goal, Huawei has made a ton of stride in that direction. According to Gartner research, Huawei’s smartphone sales in the 1st quarter have increased 59% from the year prior, while Apple declined 14% and Samsung’s sales remained flat. This gives Huawei a marketshare of around 8.3%, and while that’s a good deal behind Samsung’s 23% and Apple’s 15% — the gap is slowly closing.

To get the rest of the way, Huawei is going to need to get a few things right. First, it’s going to need to continue creating high-end handsets at cut throat pricing. Second, it’s going to need to keep up with innovative breakthroughs that keep it competitive. Speaking to the latter point, Huawei says it is getting ready to embrace VR with a Google Daydream-ready phone this fall. Huawei also says it will continue pushing forward its camera experience with its Leica partnership, which will continue for “at least the next five years”.

Dayd

These are all great moves, but the third piece to the puzzle is finding a way to break into the US market. While China is easily the biggest global market, North America is still a very important market and winning it over could be exactly what Huawei needs to push its marketshare to the next level. Huawei says it has plans to do just that in the future, saying it is in discussions with carriers to bring more of its phones to the US.

Huawei doesn’t say specifically what phones it might bring to the US, but it would make sense that its Daydream-ready phone could be just such a device. Of course, that’s just speculation on our part. What do you think, have you been impressed by Huawei’s growth over the years? Would you consider buying a Huawei made device? Share your thoughts in the comments.