(Telecompaper) Huawei Technologies said its third-quarter smartphone shipments jumped 26 percent year-on-year to 16.8 million worldwide. About a quarter of those were mid- to high-end models, more than twice as many as the same period last year. "We are breaking our bottlenecks of mid- to high-end models step by step, especially in overseas markets," Huawei consumer business group marketing executive Shao Yang told Reuters in an interview. To further expand in the high end of the market, Huawei plans to increase its global marketing budget at least 30 percent in 2015, compared with USD 440 million this year, he said. The company has shipped 51 million smartphones globally in the first three quarters of 2014, about 63.8 percent of its annual shipment target of 80 million. Shao said he expected quarter-on-quarter shipments growth of up to 80 percent in the fourth quarter. A little more than half of Huawei's smartphone shipments went to China in the third quarter. Elsewhere, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific recorded the strongest growth.