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HONG KONG—The head of consumer products for Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co. said Tuesday he is confident the company will reach its target to ship 140 million smartphones in 2016, a 30% increase from last year.

Speaking at a news conference, Huawei Consumer Business Group Chief Executive Richard Yu said his division is aiming to book $28 billion in revenue this year, up 41% from $19.9 billion in 2015. The sales would be partly fueled by about 15,000 new retail stores the company plans to open this year, he said. Huawei has more than 35,000 stores world-wide, according to its latest earnings presentation.

Shenzhen-based Huawei said it shipped 60.6 million smartphones in the six months through June, up 25% from a year earlier. Revenue from its consumer business group, which mostly sells smartphones, rose to 77.4 billion yuan ($11.59 billion) in the first half of this year on strong demand from Europe and emerging markets. In the first half of 2015, Huawei reported revenue from the consumer business of $9.09 billion. The company didn't provide net profit figures.

Mr. Yu's ambitions for Huawei's smartphone business underscore the fast pace of its growth. Huawei emerged as a major player in handset manufacturing after it began selling its first modern smartphone in 2009. Before that, the company had been known primarily as one of the world's largest suppliers of telecom-networking gear competing with the likes of Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent.

The company's sales have been buoyed by demand for high-end phones, such as its latest flagship, the P9, which features a dual-lens camera it developed with German optics company Leica Camera AG. Huawei's global market share of smartphones that cost between $500 and $600 stood at 26% in the first quarter, it said, citing data from market-research firm GfK. In comparison, its global market share for phones ranging between $300 and $500 was around 15%, it said.

Huawei, the world's third-largest smartphone maker by sales behind Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc., is trying to close the gap against the two smartphone giants. In the first quarter, Huawei's smartphone sales grew 59% to more than 28 million units, while its global market share increased to 8.3% from 5.4% in the year-earlier period, according to data from research firm Gartner. Samsung's market share in the quarter was 23%, followed by Apple's 15%.

Growth in the mobile-phone industry is coming mainly from outside China, in emerging markets where many consumers are still replacing basic feature phones with smartphones. While China's increasingly saturated smartphone market is showing signs of slowing growth, Huawei is expanding rapidly in North Africa, Central Asia and Latin America.

Huawei said its share of smartphones in Egypt was more than 20% and more than 15% in New Zealand. In Argentina, Chile and Turkey, the company said smartphone sales doubled in the first half from the year-earlier period.

Huawei still lags behind in sales in the U.S., but Mr. Yu hopes it can build a market presence there that is similar to its success in Europe in three to five years.

Mr. Yu also said he was confident the company's market share in China would surpass 20% this year and that its goal is to reach at least 30%. In the second quarter of 2016, its share in China stood at more than 16%, making it the biggest player in the country after local rivals Oppo and Vivo, according to research firm Canalys.

Write to Wayne Ma at wayne.ma@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 26, 2016 06:55 ET (10:55 GMT)

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