Huawei‘s head of North America, John Roese, said his company was more than ready to take on larger rival Cisco Systems but noted it would take some patience – and time.

“The US is by far our most complex market … for us our entrance into the US is similar to a western company entering China,” Roese said on the sidelines of Interop, an internet technology infrastructure conference in Las Vegas.

For a decade, China-based Huawei has been selling infrastructure to US telecoms operators. It sells routers and switches that move data through networks and devices such as modems and smartphones, but now it aims to provide equipment to large businesses, a market dominated by Cisco Systems.

Huawei in September last year launched its enterprise unit and aims to generate US$15 billion worldwide in revenue by 2015. This year it expects its deals to total more than…