Huawei projects 10% average growth over 5 years

Its 2012 sales increase 8 percent to $35.5b, while profits jump 32 percent

Huawei Technologies Co, the Chinese telecom giant, has forecast revenue growth will average 10 percent annually over the next five years.

Releasing its annual report for 2012 on Monday, it said sales rose 8 percent to 220 billion yuan ($35.5 billion) last year.

Huawei also posted a 32 percent jump in net profit to 15.38 billion yuan during the period.

Guo Ping, acting chief executive officer, said it met its business performance expectations through improved operational efficiency.

He expressed confidence in future growth based on the market's ongoing demand for ubiquitous connections.

"Information and communications technology will continue to grow, with new opportunities coming from cloud computing big data, and feature phones being replaced by smartphones at a faster rate," Guo said in a statement.

Huawei's founder Ren Zhengfei attributed its performance during the past 25 years to "gaining might from a small hole", explaining that water under high pressure can be spurted from a small hole to cut steel plate.

Huawei and its 150,000 employees, he said, pursue the duel target of focusing on customers and lifting competitiveness.

The global telecom industry was sluggish last year because many telecom operators cut their spending.

Huawei's big Chinese rival ZTE Corp booked a net loss of 2.84 billion yuan in 2012, down from a net profit of 2.1 billion yuan the previous year.

Ericsson AB, the world's largest vendor of wireless networks, said its net profit dropped 53 percent to $930 million in 2012.