Huawei’s smartphone sales increased by nearly one-third in 2014 to reach $11.8 billion, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.

Richard Yu, the company’s consumer business chief, revealed in the memo that the Chinese vendor shipped around 75 million smartphones during the year, an annual increase of more than 40 per cent.

Although the company increased its smartphone shipments, the total fell short of its previously-stated goal of 80 million units.

Recent figures from analyst firm Gartner showed that Chinese players continued to expand their market share in the smartphone sector during the third quarter of 2014.

Huawei was ranked third for smartphone sales, just ahead of fellow Chinese players Xiaomi and Lenovo. The three companies saw their combined share of the global smartphone market increase by 4.2 percentage points year-on-year.

This was in contrast to market leader Samsung, which saw its share fall to 24.4 per cent from 32.1 per cent in Q3 2013. In China, Samsung’s biggest market, smartphone sales fell 28.6 per cent.

The annual sales growth seen by Xiaomi was a spectacular 336 per cent, leaving the three Chinese vendors separated by less than a million units.