Bob Cai, VP of wireless network marketing at Huawei, said the company is targeting “at least a 10 per cent increase” in revenue for this business in the coming years, with a target of $15 billion for 2016, which will make it “very comparable with Ericsson” in the size of its wireless business.

This figure includes professional services in addition to equipment sales.

Underpinning this is strong growth in the LTE space, where revenue has more than doubled year-on-year to comfortably exceed $2 billion in 2013. Late last year, David Wang, president of wireless networks for the Chinese giant, said that a doubling of LTE sales this year is also targeted.

The company recently published unaudited results for 2013 which show revenue growth of 8 per cent on a group level.

At an analyst event in London this week, Cai noted a deal with LG U+ in South Korea as “one of the milestones” in the company’s development, due to the advanced nature of the LTE market in this country. LG U+ is in the process of supporting LTE carrier aggregation across three frequency bands.

And in the coming year, China will be “the star of the whole world”, as China Mobile, China Unicom and China Unicom all ramp-up their LTE networks, with an anticipation that 4G subscriber numbers could reach 100 million in the market this year.

Cai also noted some of the challenges facing operators, including a growing amount of data traffic on legacy 2G networks as 3G customers meet coverage issues, and site acquisition problems which provide “a headache for mobile broadband development”.

In order to meet growing demand for mobile broadband services, Huawei is exploring the integration of Wi-Fi with TDD and FDD LTE networks, stating that “we believe that TDD and FDD and Wi-Fi can live together”. This includes work with unnamed “leading operators” to make sure an integrated solution is “mature and strong”.

And the potential to use LTE in unlicensed spectrum was also discussed, although this was very much positioned as a solution for operators who also hold licensed LTE allocations, using the additional spectrum to bolster their services using carrier aggregation. Cai did acknowledge that LTE in unlicensed spectrum by other players “could happen”, although this is not a focus.

The company has also placed a significant amount of focus on its Global Services unit, stating that in 2013 it signed more than 40 new managed services contracts, and is providing network integration services to more than 400 operators worldwide.

It said its goal is to collaborate with operators “to help them improve their investment effectiveness, service quality and customer experience”, as telcos “become increasingly user-centric and transform from a traditional supporting role to creating value”.