LAS VEGAS, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- The world's third-largest smartphone manufacturer Huawei, not satisfied with just making smartphones, is presenting the concept of an intelligent phone, its business head told Xinhua in an interview Friday.
On the first day of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held in the city of Las Vegas in the U.S. state of Nevada this week, Richard Yu, head of Huawei's Consumer Business Group, delivered a keynote speech to put forward Huawei's new concept called the "intelligent phone." This was the second time the CES invited a representative of a Chinese company to give a high-profile keynote speech.
Yu told Xinhua that smartphones which incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI) abilities could be considered as "intelligent phones," adding such cellphones could provide computer vision, local decision-making, robotics, air sensors, taste sensors and smart touch to communicate with the outside world.
"These AI-based devices provide a connection between the digital world and the physical world," Yu said. "The future intelligent phone will be like a high-performance robot without arms and legs, a smarter personal assistant."
In 2015, Huawei became the world's third-largest smartphone brand, following Samsung and Apple, with the shipment of 108 million devices.
Huawei has also become the first Chinese cellphone manufacturer to cross the 100 million shipment threshold. In the last year, Huawei sold over 139 million smartphones, a remarkable 29-percent increase compared with 2015.
However, Huawei is not satisfied with third place.
"Now Huawei has sold almost 140 million devices a year, but within two years, this number may increase to 200 million, taking over Apple," Yu said.
Huawei's fast growth was based on its long-term investments in research and development (R&D).
Yu said the company has invested 38 billion U.S. dollars in R&D in the last 10 years. In 2015 alone, Huawei spent 9.2 billion dollars on R&D, making it rank 9th in the world concerning R&D investment, surpassing Apple and Cisco.
"Huawei's R&D investment amount is still growing. In 2017, it may rise to 100 million dollars. With this speed, sooner or later, Huawei will become No. 1 on this," Yu said, adding he was very proud of Huawei's attaching so much importance to R&D.
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