Huawei Takes on Samsung, Apple With World’s Slimmest Smartphone

Huawei Technologies Co., China’s largest maker of telecommunications equipment, said it unveiled the world’s slimmest smartphone as it looks to gain share from market leaders Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) and Apple Inc (AAPL) (AAPL).

Huawei’s new Ascend P6, with a depth of 0.24 inch (6.18 millimeters), will be released in China this month and in western Europe in July, the company said in a statement yesterday. That’s at least 19 percent slimmer than either an iPhone 5 or a Galaxy S4, according to dimensions supplied on the official Websites of Apple and Samsung.

Huawei is counting on smartphones, tablets and cloud computing to help it achieve 10 percent annual sales growth in the next five years, the Shenzhen-based company said in April. It has pushed into mobile devices as its sales of network equipment have been blocked in the U.S. market by government concerns that the Chinese equipment maker aids intelligence agencies, a claim the company has denied.

The Ascend P6, weighing 4.2 ounces (120 grams), features a 1.5 gigahertz quad-core processor, a 4.7 inch high definition high-definition display, a 5 mega pixel front-facing camera and an 8 mega pixel rear-facing camera, Huawei said. The iPhone 5 and Galaxy S4 each have a depth of about 0.3 inch, according to the product websites.

Huawei had a 4.3 percent share of global smartphone shipments in the first quarter, in fourth place, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The market is lead by Samsung with 31.7 percent, and Apple with 17.3 percent.

BusinessWeek.com