Huawei sees $22 billion sales contracts in 2008

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Huawei HWT.UL, China's biggest telecom equipment maker expects sales contracts to rise 38 percent in 2008, as it looks to win business overseas, its U.S. head of marketing Charlie Chen said.

"This year we're targeting $22 billion in sales contracts," up from $16 billion in 2007, Chen said in an interview with Reuters at the CTIA, annual wireless showcase in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

Huawei brought in about 72 percent of its sales from outside China in 2007, up from 65 percent the year before as the company worked on growing overseas in markets like Europe and the United States.

Privately-held Huawei competes with companies such as Ericsson (ERICb.ST), Alcatel-Lucent (ALUA.PA) and Nokia Siemens, a venture of Nokia (NOK1V.HE) and Siemens (SIEGn.DE) in the wireless network equipment market.

It also competes with Nokia, Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and Motorola Inc (MOT.N) in the market for mobile phones.

Huawei is not interested in buying the mobile phone business of Motorola because the companies have different approaches to the cellphone market, Ross Gan, Huawei's global head of corporate communications said.

Motorola said last week it would spin off its struggling mobile phone business into a separate publicly-traded business, leading to speculation that the move could lead to an eventual sale of the unit.

While North America is currently a small part of Huawei's global network equipment and handset business, Chen says he sees it as a good opportunity for growth.

The company, which has been operating in the U.S. market since 2001, said its U.S. telecom customers include privately-held Alltel, the largest U.S. rural mobile provider and regional service Leap Wireless (LEAP.O).

But Chen is also working to win business among the top four national operators in the U.S.

"All the big operators are going to be our target customers. We're still working on it," he said. "There's no deal to announce."

The top U.S. mobile providers are AT&T Inc (T.N) and Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications (VZ.N) and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L), as well as Sprint Nextel (S.N) and T-Mobile USA, owned by Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE).

Asked whether the company was concerned a U.S. economic slowdown would effect demand for equipment in the rest of the world, Chen said demand for communications services would keep growing, though there were uncertainties.

"I definitely think there are some uncertainties in front of everybody," including operators and suppliers he said but added, "We still foresee more demand for services."

(Editing by Anshuman Daga)