Huawei will launch its Foldable phone at the MWC 2019 with sales beginning in April

Huawei on Thursday said it could become the world’s biggest-selling smartphone vendor this year even without the U.S. market and as global scrutiny of the firm intensifies.

In the event, Richard Yu, Huawei’s consumer division chief, said Huawei will launch the Foldable phone at the Mobile World Congress next month with sales beginning in April at the earliest.

Yu said its new Balong 5000 chipset, a rival to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50, is the world’s most powerful 5G modem and can be used in vehicles. The modem is also the first to support countries’ differing 5G architecture, Huawei said.

Huawei uses its own chipsets in its high-end phones and servers but said it does not intend to become a standalone chip vendor to rival the likes of Qualcomm and Intel.

Huawei reported a 50% jump in consumer business revenue last year to in excess of $52 billion. It said it aimed to keep the momentum with the launch next month of a Foldable phone powered by its new fifth-generation (5G) chipset.

Huawei sold over 17 million units of P20 series and 7.5 million units of Mate 20 series in 2018