Huawei ready to contribute more to Bangladesh telecom sector

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Raihan M Chowdhury, back from Shenzhen (China)
Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, a leading Chinese ICT company has evinced keen interest to help develop the telecommunication market in Bangladesh.
"Bangladesh is one of the fastest growing economies in Asia with a huge consumer market and we like to add value to this growth by strengthening our presence," one high official of the Shenzhen-based company told a group of newsmen who visited the headquarters of the company in China recently.
He said as Bangladesh today is experiencing a stable economic growth and Bangladeshi businesses while widening their horizons for expansion, will require world-class IT technology to meet their growing information needs.
Easy access to affordable technology solutions, world-class support and services to manage business and IT infrastructure are critical to success of Bangladesh economy.
Bangladesh's companies are relying more and more on the Huawei technology to enhance their business operations, particularly in the fast growing telecommunications sector.
Ross Gan, director of corporate communications department said the company's contract sales stood at $11 billion in 2006, a 34 per cent increase from 2005. Out of $11 billion, 65 per cent came from the international market.
The company's revenue rose to $8.50 billion in 2006 from $5.98 billion of 2005.
Products and solutions of the company serve over 1.0 billion people worldwide and 31 of the world's top 50 operators including BT, Vodafone and Telefonica are the clients of Huawei.
In Bangladesh, the company's contract sales in 2006 was $ 0.2 billion. Citycell, Banglalink, Aktel, Teletalk and Ranks Tel are, among the local clients list of Huawei.
According to the company's latest annual report, Huawei's products and solutions have been widely deployed in European countries including the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Holland etc.
"We also achieved significant breakthroughs in the Japan and US markets," the report said.
Of all of Huawei's products, mobile products make up the biggest proportion of total sales. The company grabbed a 21 per cent market share in the global GSM market.
Strong performance has been witnessed in all product areas including fixed network, IP network and telecom value-added services (VAS), with a continuous growth in the overall market share.
In 2006, the company ranked number 1 in the global NGN (next generations network) market, mobile softswitch, IP (internet protocol) DSLAM (digital subscriber access multiplexer) and MSAM market and number 2 in optical network and broadband convergence routers.
Shenzhen, where the Huawei headquarters is located is one of the fastest growing cities in the world.
Located at the border with Hong Kong, the city is a major manufacturing centre in China.
Shenzhen is home to some of China's most successful high-tech companies.
A number of global IT companies like Oracle and Foxconn also have facilities in the city.
Foxconn has a manufacturing plant based in Shenzhen where they make most of the iPods and laptops for Apple Computer. It is also shipping a large majority of the new Intel-based machines at this stage.