Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. is a leading Chinese multinational ICT solutions provider, based in Shenzhen, Guangdong.
It is one of the largest telecommunications equipment and services companies in the world, with global sales volume of over $39 billion USD.
Huawei is currently at the forefront of LTE deployment worldwide. Its solutions have been deployed in more than 100 capital cities and nine financial centers.
The company splits its business into three operating segments based on the types of products and services provided:
Carrier Network Business – develops wireless networks, fixed networks, carrier software and core networks, and services solutions to telecommunications operators.
Enterprise Business – develops integratable information and communications technology (“ICT”) products and solutions, such as enterprise information security and unified communication & collaboration, cloud-based green data centers, and enterprise network infrastructure.
Consumer Business – develops smartphones, mobile broadband devices, home devices, and applications on these devices.
Huawei was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei with total capital of RMB21,000. It was originally a sales agent for a company that produced private branch exchange (PBX) switches.
In the 1990s Huawei started its own research and commercialization of PBX technologies and it was not long before it entered the telecommunications market with its C&C08 digital telephone (which went on sale in 1992). The phone had the largest switching capacity in China at the time.
Huawei received its first overseas contract in 1997, by providing fixed-line network products to Hong Kong company Hutchison Whampoa. That same year the company launched its wireless GSM-based products and provided code division multiple access (CDMA) and universal mobile telecommunications systems (UMTS).
In 2005, the company reported international contract orders that exceeded domestic sales for the first time.
Significant telecoms companies that have worked with Huawei include BT, Vodafone, Motorola, France Telecom, T-Mobile, Talk Talk, Portugal Telecom, Cox Communications, Bell Canada, and Clearwire.
Huawei operates around 21 R&D locations across the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Turkey, Sweden, China, Pakistan, Canada, Colombia, Russia, and India.
The company has recently been a major facilitator of 5G projects initiated by the European Union and it is a founding member of the 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) in the UK. It launched the world’s first service- and user experience-centric agile network architecture, along with the first-of-its-kind agile switch S12700.
Financial Highlights
Source: “Huawei 2013 Annual Report”
Overview
- CEO: Ren Zhengfei
- Chairwoman: Sun Yafang
- Type: Private
- Industry: Telecommunications and networking equipment
- Revenue: $39.463 billion USD (2013)
- Net income: $3.468 billion USD (2013)
- Founded: 1987
- Founder(s): Ren Zhengfei
- Employees: 150,000 (2013)
- Corporate headquarters: Longgang District, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
- Website: http://www.huawei.com/
News about Huawei
July 21, 2014: Huawei half year sales rose by 19% year-on-year to 135.8bn yuan ($21.9bn). The company reported an operating margin (profit margin) of 18.3%. Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer, Cathy Meng, said that the company’s profit and revenue for H1 2014 were in line with their expectations.