Huawei plans to swell its European workforce by 5,500 people over the next five years as it expands its services in the region, reports China Daily.

The new jobs will support the company’s plan to offer IT services to European businesses, as outlined by Patrick Zhang, president of marketing and solutions at Huawei Enterprise Business Group.

The planned expansion of the company’s business comes despite the European Commission planning an investigation into anticompetitive behaviour by Huawei and fellow Chinese vendor ZTE.

However, Zhang said there is more growth potential in Europe than the US, a view likely influenced by the fact that a congressional report found the company posed a security threat, essentially halting its progress in the US.

Zhang said the company has “encountered access difficulties due to some groundless reasons given by the American side”.

Huawei recently reaffirmed its commitment to European R&D investment with Renato Lombardi, vice president of Huawei’s European Research Centre, saying it is committed to reinvesting “a minimum of 10 per cent of revenue” in R&D each year.

The company opened what it calls an Enterprise Center in the Netherlands last week, which will showcase its R&D research and products for European enterprise customers.

The company also scored a major blow against Ericsson in Europe with a six year deal to supply and manage the mobile network of Denmark’s TDC from March 2014. The deal sees the Chinese company replace Ericsson.

Huawei is reportedly looking to increase revenue by 10 per cent per year over the next five years. Its revenue in 2012 totalled $35 billion. This growth will apparently be driven by Huawei’s enterprise and consumer device businesses with a reduced focus on the company’s carrier network division.

Huawei said it was on track to increase revenue by 10 per cent during 2013 when it reported first half revenue of CNY113.8 billion ($18.59 billion), a 10.8 per cent year-on-year increase.