A file photo shows Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei. [Photo: baidu.com]

Huawei, one of the world's largest telecom equipment makers, will endeavor to push its sales revenue up to 150 billion dollars by 2020, higher than the GDP of countries like Spain and South Korea, Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei raised the ambitious target at the National Conference of Science and Technology Innovation on Monday.

The Shenzhen-based company Huawei has overtaken Apple as the top smart phone seller in China in the first quarter this year, and now it's the world's third largest smart phone brand.

Ren said Huawei had already made great strides into a "No Man's Land" for technological development, while underlining the importance of innovation in the next decades.

He added that in this place, where they have to guide themselves in their endeavors, Huawei, as a leading telecommunication company, will face up to the challenges and keep innovating.

According to Ren, currently Huawei has more than 80,000 research personnel and has long been committing over 10 percent of sales revenue to research and development. Last year, Huawei's research budget stood at 9.2 billion dollars. They plan to further raise it to between 10 and 20 billion, going forward.

Telecommunication and IT expert Ma Jihua said Huawei's achievement was inseparable from national support for innovation.

During this year's National Conference of Science and Technology Innovation, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech, describing innovation as an important force in development, and stressing the role of scientific research in economic growth and social development.