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Chinese technology giant Huawei Technologies Co. said its net profit rose 32% last year, helped by fast-growing smartphone sales and solid demand for networking equipment from carriers upgrading wireless networks.

As revenue increased 37% last year, Huawei doubled down on its investment in research and development. Its R&D spending rose 46% to 59.6 billion yuan ($9.2 billion) last year, the company said Friday.

Shenzhen-based Huawei has been growing rapidly in the world's mobile phone market, becoming the third-largest smartphone maker by shipments behind Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc. Huawei is also one of the leading players in the market for carrier-network gear such as wireless base stations, alongside Sweden's Ericsson and Finland's Nokia Corp.

Huawei said its net profit last year rose to 36.9 billion yuan from 27.9 billion yuan in 2014, while its revenue increased to 395 billion yuan from 288.2 billion yuan.

Smartphones and other consumer gadgets represented the fastest-growing part of Huawei's business. Revenue from the consumer business jumped 73% to 129.1 billion yuan, the company said, as sales grew not only in China but in overseas markets such as Europe and the Middle East.

Last year, Huawei had a 7.4% share in the world's smartphone market, behind Samsung's 23% and Apple's 16%, according to research firm IDC. Huawei's smartphone shipments rose 44% last year to more than 106 million units, recording the fastest growth among the top-five players in the market, IDC said.

Huawei, founded in 1987 by former Chinese army engineer Ren Zhengfei, built its success in the global market initially by selling networking equipment to telecom carriers.

Last year, revenue from its mainstay carrier network business rose 21% to 232.3 billion yuan, due mainly to continued demand from carriers around the world installing faster fourth-generation wireless networks, the company said.

In recent years, Huawei has also been trying to expand another business of supplying private networks and Internet infrastructure such as data centers to corporate clients—a market where it competes with U.S. companies such as Cisco Systems Inc. Last year, Huawei's revenue from the enterprise business segment rose 44% to 27.6 billion yuan, the company said.

Write to Juro Osawa at juro.osawa@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 31, 2016 23:25 ET (03:25 GMT)

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