LIVE FROM HUAWEI ASCEND P6 LAUNCH, LONDON: Sir Charles Dunstone, the chairman of Carphone Warehouse (pictured), announced that Huawei’s new flagship smartphone, the Ascend P6, will be the first device from the Chinese company to be offered by the European retail giant.

“Although [Huawei is] a relatively new player within this marketplace, the product is absolutely competing at really the top level,” he told the audience at the Ascend P6 launch in London.

And with Huawei’s background in building networks and its own chips, Dunstone said there’s “a massive depth of knowledge and understanding behind the product”.

Dunstone added that through his work with Huawei as chairman of broadband provider TalkTalk, he has seen that the company is “the most extraordinary engineering organisation”.

“I’ve seen people come and I’ve seen people go and we’re taking this incredibly seriously. Because if you look at the resources they have, if you look at the determination of the organisation and you look at the quality of the products that are being delivered, I think Huawei are going to be a very, very big player in the smartphone marketplace for many years to come,” Dunstone said.