Huawei would consider buying Nokia to help it become the world’s leading smartphone maker, according to the head of the Chinese telecom group’s consumer business.
“We are considering these sorts of acquisitions; maybe the combination has some synergies but depends on the willingness of Nokia. We are open-minded,” said Richard Yu, chairman of Huawei’s consumer business group, ahead of a glitzy launch of its latest premium smartphone, the Ascend P6, in London.
Mr Yu predicted that the smartphone market would consolidate to about three or four companies – and warned that Microsoft’s Windows phone platform used by Nokia as well as Huawei was “weak”. Huawei has mostly adopted Google’s Android operating system for its smartphones.
“Whether Windows Phone [will be] successful is difficult to say – it has a very small market share. [Windows Phones] are weak but still require a licence fee. That’s not good. Android is free.”