Huawei Technologies, one of the world's leading networking and telecom equipment makers, said yesterday its global contract sales grew 40 percent last year to US$8.2 billion.

The Shenzhen-based firm attributed the growth to strong performance by its wireless, next generation and optical networks as well as other divisions such as data communication, application software and terminals.

Over 60 percent of its revenue, or US$5 billion, was derived from overseas markets and the rest came from its strong domestic sales, Huawei said in a statement.

"This is the first time that Huawei's overseas sales surpassed its domestic sales. We'll continue our efforts in the international markets and expect 70 percent of sales from markets abroad by 2008," a Huawei spokesman said.

While steadily gaining market share in developing countries, Huawei now does business with 28 of the world's top 50 carriers, including British Telecom, Vodafone and Telefonica.

Editor: Yan