TELECOM equipment and smartphone maker Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. on Tuesday said it aims to compete with Amazon.com Inc. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. as a global provider of public cloud services.

    The Shenzhen-based firm, which last month reported its slowest profit growth in five years, said it will expand in cloud computing with a dedicated division that will recruit 2,000 more people this year.

    “We used to focus on private cloud and did well,” Zheng Yelai, president of the new unit, said at an annual analyst meeting. “Now the purpose is to strengthen our public cloud offering.”

    Public cloud services involve shared data infrastructure, rather than dedicated infrastructure built for single customers.

    Consultancy Gartner expects the market for public cloud services to reach US$383 billion by 2020 from US$247 billion this year.

    By expanding in cloud computing, hardware-focused Huawei hopes to continue developing software-based revenue at a time of slowing growth in smartphone sales and reduced spending on telecommunication infrastructure.

    In China, its biggest rival in public cloud services would be Alibaba Cloud, while the latest market entrant is conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group Co. Ltd. in partnership with International Business Machines Corp.

    Zheng declined to say when Huawei aims to beat Alibaba, which is also a client of Huawei’s IT infrastructure and services.

    Eric Xu, deputy chairman of Huawei’s board and one of three rotating chief executive officers, said Huawei’s global network of telecoms clients give the firm a unique advantage.

    Xu also said Huawei would not compete for market share by offering services at extremely low prices. Huawei earlier said it expects its cloud computing revenue to reach 10 billion yuan by 2020.(SD-Agencies)