Huawei Technologies is tripling spending on marketing for 2017 as it seeks to become No.2 in the Thai smartphone market, up one spot from last year's ranking.
The Chinese handset maker's ultimate goal is to become No.1 in the local smartphone market by 2020, overtaking South Korea's Samsung for the title.
"We expect sales growth for our mobile phone business to triple this year, the same as in 2016," said Tossaporn Nisthanon, deputy country director of Huawei Consumer Business Group Thailand. "We aim to become second-ranked with a double-digit market share this year, up from third-ranked with a single-digit share last year."
Mr Tossaporn said Huawei in January alone overcame the No.2 player (an apparent reference to Apple) in the local smartphone market, making Huawei the second-biggest smartphone vendor in Thailand.
He based the figures on a report by GfK Retail and Technology Thailand.
Before June 2016, Huawei was one the top five players in the local market.
With the success of the flagship P9 smartphone launched in Thailand last year, as well as a sharp increase in Huawei's sales channels to 7,000 outlets, Huawei became No.3 last year, Mr Tossaporn said.
Chanvit Khieonavavongsa, chief marketing officer of Huawei Consumer Business Group Thailand, said Thailand is one of the top five markets for the best-selling P9 smartphone.
Huawei sold more than 10 million P9 phones worldwide in 2016.
To continue the successful growth of the previous year, Huawei yesterday rolled out another flagship smartphone model, Huawei P10 and P10 Plus, scheduled to become available in the Thai market this month.
The phone will retail for 17,900-23,900 baht, depending on the handset's memory capacity.
Mr Tossaporn said Thailand's mobile phone market is expected to grow by 4-5% to 18 million units this year, in line with the country's GDP. Up to 95% of units sold will be smartphones.
Huawei plans to increase the number of sales outlets from 7,000 to 8,000 this year and focus on female and younger buyers, he said.