China's largest telecom equipment provider, Huawei Technologies, said Thursday that the company's overseas sales will reach five billion US dollars in 2005.

This would be the first time that Huawei's overseas sales will surpass domestic sales, said Fu Jun, spokesman with the company. Total sales will likely reach 8.5 billion US dollars in 2005.

As one of the most successful telecom equipment suppliers in the world, Huawei reported annual sales revenue of 5.58 billion US dollars in 2004. This is with a sharp rise of 45 percent year-on- year, 2.28 billion US dollars or 41 percent of which came from overseas markets.

Earlier, the company had set its goal of overseas sales for this year at four billion US dollars.

"The good sales record in the first quarter this year, however, have made us more optimistic," said Fu.

Huawei has been a global company for many years and has sold its products to more than 90 countries and established cooperative relationships with more than 400 telecom operators.

Huawei Technologies is one of China's earliest investors in the third-generation mobile communication technology (3G). Though the 3G market has not been launched in China, the company has applied its 3G technologies to many countries to build 3G network. Customer countries include Malaysia, the Netherlands, United Arab Emirates and Thailand.

The company has started to sell its 3G terminals recently in Singapore, said Fu.

More than 10 percent of the company's total sales is spent on research and development, and it has set up research centers in the United States, Sweden, India and Russia. About three percent of Huawei's sales revenue is used to improve its corporate management, said Fu.

Source: Xinhua