Few consumers had even heard of Huawei in 2011, the year in which its board decided to focus on breaking into the smartphone market in a big way.

The company’s portfolio of cheap, low-tech devices had led many to mark the group down as just another “me-too” Chinese white-label manufacturer. But six years on, Huawei has achieved its ambition. As well as now being one of the world’s leading suppliers of telecoms equipment, ranking alongside Sweden’s Ericsson, it has also become the third-biggest vendor of smartphones by market share, according to research company Gartner.

The Chinese company has aspirations to be number one as it moves to make more expensive devices aimed at western markets. In 2011, it shipped 1m handsets. Last year, this figure rose to more than 139m.