Chinese supplier Huawei said H1 2014 revenues were up 19 per cent year-on-year, to CNY135.8 billion ($21.9 billion), helped by increased LTE investment worldwide and growing brand awareness for its range of consumer devices.

In a brief statement, Huawei said it also expected to post an operating margin of 18.3 per cent for the first six months. The Chinese firm did not give a comparable figure for 2013, but operating margin for the whole of last year was 12.2 per cent.

“Driven by increasing investments in LTE networks worldwide, Huawei has further solidified its leadership position in mobile broadband,” claimed Cathy Meng, Huawei’s CFO. “We also achieved quality and sustainable growth in our consumer business thanks to the increase of brand awareness and smart devices sales worldwide.”

Meng said that Huawei’s flagship smartphone, the Ascend P7 (pictured), is now being sold in more than 70 countries and regions. And though Ascend P7 was only launched in May, Huawei claimed recently it had already shipped more than one million of them.

IDC, a research firm, calculated Huawei shipped 13.7 million smartphones in the first three months of this year, making it the world’s third-biggest smartphone vendor.

Even so, the Chinese firm trails, by some distance, market leaders Samsung and Apple. They shipped 85 million and 43.7 million smartphones respectively during the same period, while Lenovo (12.9 million) and LG (12.3 million) are not far behind Huawei’s Q1 smartphone tally.

Meng highlighted too a strong pick-up in software and services, which helped maintain “steady growth” in the firm’s carrier network business. She added that efforts in the enterprise space were also beginning to pay off and that Huawei had seen “accelerated growth” in this area.

“We are confident that in 2014 we will achieve sustainable growth, robust operations and healthy financials,” said Meng.

Local rival ZTE has also benefitted from increased operator investment in LTE, revising upwards its H1 profit guidance as a consequence.

And ZTE expects 4G devices will account for 40 per cent of its total shipments this year, signalling its intent – like Huawei – to have a bigger presence in the high-end smartphone market.