Huawei: Move to target Russian giants

Huawei Technologies, China’s biggest maker of phone network equipment, is seeking to capitalise on the country’s strengthening ties with Russia by expanding into services for energy giants such as Gazprom. The Chinese company was adding products such as the systems that were used by oil and gas companies to manage pipelines and offshore fields, Deng Yi, the vice-president at Huawei’s enterprise unit, said in Moscow yesterday. The $400 billion (R4.3 trillion) deal signed by Gazprom last month to ship gas to China was helping to facilitate business between the countries, he said. Huawei, whose main business competes against Ericsson and Nokia in building phone networks, was targeting a quadrupling of sales to $10bn at its enterprise unit by 2017, he said. – Bloomberg