Huawei plans to upscale and focus on the middle and higher end device space to secure a top two position within South Africa's smartphone market.

The company is ranked number 3 globally, and in 2016 its consumer division generated US$25.9bn revenue, with 139m units shipped.

In South Africa, its focal point on the continent, Huawei wants to build on its 2015-2016 year-on-year growth rate of 87% - driven mainly by the company's P Series and Mate Series devices.

Yesterday in Johannesburg, Zhao Likun, General Manager of the Huawei Consumer Business Group South Africa said the strategy is to leverage its integrated supply chain, integrated product development process and channel partnerships.

Centred around Huawei's most recent flagship offering, the P10 and P10 Plus, Likun said the objectives are to address critical consumer requirements including longer battery life for data service, faster processing capability and enhanced picture quality and performance.

The solutions will be in store in South Africa in the next four weeks, said Likun.

"For the first time, we will start to pre-order with our partners and we will also look at incentives for early subscribers," said Likun.

He added that in terms of partnership strategy, South Africa is different to other Africa regions in terms of focus. There is emphasis in these markets on entry-to-mid level devices.

The company will also more closely at 5G (and help operators with migration from 3G to 4G, and scale up) as well as rapidly developing technologies like AI.

"We will also expand into wearable devices, even to laptops," Likun added.

Huawei emphasised key selling points of the 6.98mm P10 and P10 Plus including fast and safe charging, precise 3D facial detection, Kirin 960 CPU, LTE Quad Antenna for enhanced WiFi functionality.