Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei had a blast in 2015 as the company announced its annual profit last week and delved into detail in this year's Consumers Electronic Show. Huawei Technologies Co. has reached a milestone after becoming the first Chinese cellphone maker to ship over 100 million smartphone units in 2015.

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Huawei announced on Wednesday that its revenue last year surpassed the $20 billion mark - representing a 70 percent increase from 2014. Furthermore, it shipped 108 million smartphone units in 2015 alone, about 44 percent more than its 2014 shipment. Defying the economic slowdown, these figures challenge mobile industry leaders like Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc.

The Chinese company has ranked third in the global market and first within China since March 2015 - based on market share. In western Europe, its high-end phones worth between 400 and 500 euros have gained impressive sales, ranking Huawei third in the market share in Spain, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and others. 

For the year ahead, the Shenzhen-based company is already displaying signs of promising performance. Samsung earlier admitted that 2016 will be challenging because of economic slowdown and increase in competition. Apple, on the other hand, had to scale back its production by nearly 30 percent in the first quarter (January to March) allegedly because of inventory pile up and slow demand.  

Experts say it is too early to say whether Huawei can stand against telecom giants Apple and Samsung. "In China it's true that Huawei grew tremendously over the past six months, but it's a bit of a dog fight within the Android ecosystem," Carolina Milanesi, Kantar Worldpanel ComTech analyst, said. She added that Huawei is in fact competing with Xiaomi and other Android-based players.

Huawei has been doing good in promoting brand awareness too. From 94th, it has stepped up to 88th in the Top 100 Global Brands list. And its 65 percent (2014) consumer awareness rose to 75 percent in 2015, thereby topping IPSOS brand awareness growth.

The company took advantage of the CES 2016 to launch its Mate 8, which was initially released in December 2015 in China only.

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