Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.

 (/ˈhwɑːˌweɪ/; Chinese: 华为; pinyin:  Huáwéi) is
a Chinese multinational technology company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong. It designs,
develops, and sells telecommunications equipment and consumer electronics.[4]
The company was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, a former Deputy Regimental Chief in
the People's Liberation Army.[5] Initially focused on manufacturing phone switches, Huawei has
expanded its business to include building telecommunications networks, providing operational
and consulting services and equipment to enterprises inside and outside of China, and
manufacturing communications devices for the consumer market.[6][7] Huawei has over 194,000
employees as of December 2019.[8]
Huawei has deployed its products and services in more than 170 countries.[9] It overtook Ericsson in
2012 as the largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer in the world,[10] and
overtook Apple in 2018 as the second-largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world,
behind Samsung Electronics.[11] In 2018, Huawei reported that its annual revenue was US$108.5
billion.[12] In July 2020, Huawei surpassed Samsung and Apple to become the top smartphone brand
(in number of phones shipped) in the world for the first time.[13] This was primarily due to a drop in
Samsung's global sales in the second quarter of 2020, owing to the impact of the COVID-19
pandemic.[13][14][15]
Although successful internationally, Huawei has faced difficulties in some markets, due to claims of
undue state support, links to the People's Liberation Army, and cybersecurity concerns—primarily
from the United States government—that Huawei's infrastructure equipment may
enable surveillance by the Chinese government.[16][17] With the development of 5G wireless networks,
there have been calls from the U.S. and its allies to not do any kind of business with Huawei or other
Chinese telecommunications companies such as ZTE.[18] Huawei has argued that its products posed
"no greater cybersecurity risk" than those of any other vendor and that there is no evidence of the
U.S. espionage claims.[19] Questions regarding Huawei's ownership and control as well as concerns
regarding the extent of state support also remain.[16] Huawei has also been accused of assisting in
the surveillance and mass detention of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang re-education camps, which have
resulted in sanctions by the United States Department of State.[20][21][22] Huawei tested facial
recognition AI capable of recognizing ethnicity-specific features to alert government authorities to
members of the ethnic group.[23]
In the midst of an ongoing trade war between China and the United States, Huawei was restricted
from doing commerce with U.S. companies due to alleged previous willful violations of U.S.
sanctions against Iran. On 29 June 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump reached an agreement to
resume trade talks with China and announced that he would ease the aforementioned sanctions on
Huawei. Huawei cut 600 jobs at its Santa Clara research center in June, and in December 2019
founder Ren Zhengfei said it was moving the center to Canada because the restrictions would block
them from interacting with US employees.[24][25] On November 17, 2020, Huawei agreed to sell
the Honor brand to Shenzen Zhixin New Information Technology to "ensure its survival", after the US
sanctions against them.[26]

Contents

 1Name
 2History
o 2.1Early years
o 2.2Foreign expansion
o 2.3Recent performance
 3Corporate affairs
 o 3.1Leadership
 3.1.1Board of Directors
 3.1.2Executives
o 3.2Ownership
 4Partners
 5Products and services
o 5.1Telecommunication networks
o 5.2Global services
o 5.3Devices
o 5.4Phones
 5.4.1History of Huawei phones
o 5.5Laptops
o 5.6Tablets
o 5.7Wearables
o 5.8Software
 5.8.1EMUI (Emotion User Interface)
 5.8.2Harmony OS
 5.8.3Huawei Mobile Services (HMS)
 6Competitive position
o 6.1R&D centers
 7Controversies
o 7.1Early business practices
o 7.2Allegations of espionage
o 7.3Allegations of fraud and conspiracy to subvert sanctions against Iran
o 7.4Allegations of intellectual property theft
o 7.5Allegations of involvement in Xinjiang re-education camps
o 7.6Allegations of collusion between Huawei and the Chinese Communist Party apparatus
o 7.7U.S. business restrictions
o 7.8Canadian response
 7.8.1Huawei's response and stockpiling
 7.8.2Replacement operating systems (Harmony OS)
 8See also
 9References
 10External links

Name[edit]
According to the company founder Ren Zhengfei, the name Huawei comes from a slogan he saw on
a wall, Zhonghua youwei meaning "China has promise" (中华有为, Zhōnghuá yǒuwéi), when he was
starting up the company and needed a name.[27] Zhonghua or Hua means China,
[28]
 while youwei means "promising/to show promise".[29][30] Huawei has also been translated as
"splendid achievement" or "China is able", which are possible readings of the name.[31] In
Chinese pinyin, the name is Huáwéi,[32] and pronounced [xwǎwéi] in Mandarin Chinese;
in Cantonese, the name is transliterated with Jyutping as Waa4-wai4 and pronounced [wȁːwɐ̏i].
However, pronunciation of Huawei by non-Chinese varies in other countries, for example "Hoe-ah-
wei" in Belgium and the Netherlands.[33] The company had considered changing the name in English
out of concern that non-Chinese people may find it hard to pronounce,[34] but decided to keep the
name, and launched a name recognition campaign instead to encourage a pronunciation closer to
"Wah-Way" using the words "Wow Way".[35][36]
History[edit]
Early years[edit]
During the 1980s, the Chinese government tried to modernize the country's underdeveloped
telecommunications infrastructure. A core component of the telecommunications network was
telephone exchange switches, and in the late 1980s, several Chinese research groups endeavored
to acquire and develop the technology, usually through joint ventures with foreign companies.
Ren Zhengfei, a former deputy director of the People's Liberation Army engineering corps, founded
Huawei in 1987 in Shenzhen. The company reports that it had RMB 21,000 (about $5,000 at the
time) in registered capital from Ren Zhengfei and five other investors at the time of its founding
where each contributed RMB 3,500.[37] They include Mei Zhongxing, manager at Shenzhen Sanjiang
Electronics Co.; Zhang Xiangyang, a member of the Shenzhen Bureau of Development Planning;
Wu Huiqing, an accountant at Shenzhen Petrochemical Co.; Shen Dingzing, a manager at Zhuhai
Communications Equipment Manufacturing Co.; and Chen Jinyang, a manager in the trade
department of the state-run China Travel Service in Shenzhen. These five initial investors gradually
withdrew their investments in Huawei.
Ren sought to reverse engineer foreign technologies with local researchers. At a time when all of
China's telecommunications technology was imported from abroad, Ren hoped to build a domestic
Chinese telecommunication company that could compete with, and ultimately replace, foreign
competitors.[38]
During its first several years the company's business model consisted mainly of reselling private
branch exchange (PBX) switches imported from Hong Kong.[6][39] Meanwhile, it was reverse-
engineering imported switches and investing heavily in research and development to manufacture its
own technologies.[6] By 1990 the company had approximately 600 R&D staff and began its own
independent commercialization of PBX switches targeting hotels and small enterprises.[40]
The company's first major breakthrough came in 1993 when it launched its C&C08 program
controlled telephone switch. It was by far the most powerful switch available in China at the time. By
initially deploying in small cities and rural areas and placing emphasis on service and
customizability, the company gained market share and made its way into the mainstream market.[41]
Huawei also won a key contract to build the first national telecommunications network for the
People's Liberation Army, a deal one employee described as "small in terms of our overall business,
but large in terms of our relationships".[42] In 1994, founder Ren Zhengfei had a meeting with Party
general secretary Jiang Zemin, telling him that "switching equipment technology was related to
national security, and that a nation that did not have its own switching equipment was like one that
lacked its own military." Jiang reportedly agreed with this assessment.[6]
In the 1990s Canadian telecom giant Nortel outsourced production of their entire product line to
Huawei.[43][dubious  –  discuss] They subsequently outsourced much of their product engineering to Huawei as
well.[44][dubious  –  discuss]
Another major turning point for the company came in 1996 when the government in Beijing adopted
an explicit policy of supporting domestic telecommunications manufacturers and restricting access to
foreign competitors. Huawei was promoted by both the government and the military as a national
champion, and established new research and development offices.[6]

Foreign expansion[edit]
Huawei Offices
In Voorburg, Netherlands

In Markham, Ontario, Canada

In 1997, Huawei won a contract to provide fixed-line network products to Hong Kong
company Hutchison Whampoa.[41] Later that year, Huawei launched its wireless GSM-based products
and eventually expanded to offer CDMA and UMTS. In 1999, the company opened a research and
development (R&D) center in Bangalore, India to develop a wide range of telecom software.[40]
In May 2003, Huawei partnered with 3Com on a joint venture known as H3C, which was focused on
enterprise networking equipment. It marked 3Com's re-entrance into the high-end core routers and
switch market, after having abandoned it in 2000 to focus on other businesses. 3Com bought out
Huawei's share of the venture in 2006 for US$882 million.[45][46]
In 2004, Huawei signed a $10 billion credit line with the China Development Bank (CDB) to provide
low-cost financing to customers buying its telecommunications equipment to support its sales
outside of China. This line of credit was tripled to $30 billion in 2009.[47]
In 2005, Huawei's foreign contract orders exceeded its domestic sales for the first time. Huawei
signed a Global Framework Agreement with Vodafone. This agreement marked the first time a
telecommunications equipment supplier from China had received Approved Supplier status from
Vodafone Global Supply Chain.[48][non-primary source needed] Huawei also signed a contract with British
Telecom (BT) for the deployment of its multi-service access network (MSAN) and transmission
equipment for BT's 21st Century Network (21CN).[citation needed]
In 2007, Huawei began a joint venture with U.S. security software vendor Symantec Corporation,
known as Huawei Symantec, which aimed to provide end-to-end solutions for network data storage
and security. Huawei bought out Symantec's share in the venture in 2012, with The New York
Times noting that Symantec had fears that the partnership "would prevent it from obtaining United
States government classified information about cyberthreats".[49]
In May 2008, Australian carrier Optus announced that it would establish a technology research
facility with Huawei in Sydney.[50] In October 2008, Huawei reached an agreement to contribute to a
new GSM-based HSPA+ network being deployed jointly by Canadian carriers Bell Mobility and Telus
Mobility, joined by Nokia Siemens Networks.[51] In November 2020, Telus dropped the plan to build
5G network with Huawei.[52] Huawei delivered one of the world's first LTE/EPC commercial networks
for TeliaSonera in Oslo, Norway in 2009.[40]
In July 2010, Huawei was included in the Global Fortune 500 2010 list published by the U.S.
magazine Fortune for the first time, on the strength of annual sales of US$21.8 billion and net profit
of US$2.67 billion.[53][54]
In October 2012, it was announced that Huawei would move its UK headquarters to Green
Park, Reading, Berkshire.[55]
In September 2017, Huawei created a Narrowband IoT city-aware network using a "one network,
one platform, N applications" construction model utilizing 'Internet of things'(IoT), cloud
computing, big data, and other next-generation information and communications technology, it also
aims to be one of the world's five largest cloud players in the near future.[56][57]
In April 2019, Huawei established the Huawei Malaysia Global Training Centre (MGTC)
at Cyberjaya, Malaysia,[58] which is Huawei's first training center outside of China.

Recent performance[edit]

Huawei expo at IFA 2018 in Berlin

By 2018, Huawei had sold 200 million smartphones.[59] They reported that strong consumer demand
for premium range smart phones helped the company reach consumer sales in excess of $52 billion
in 2018.[60]
Huawei announced worldwide revenues of $105.1 billion for 2018, with a net profit of $8.7 billion.
[61]
 Huawei's Q1 2019 revenues were up 39% year-over-year, at US$26.76 billion.[62]
In 2019, Huawei reported revenue of US$122 billion.[63]
By the second quarter of 2020, Huawei had become the world's top smartphone seller,
overtaking Samsung for the first time.[13]

Corporate affairs[edit]
Huawei classifies itself as a "collective" entity and prior to 2019 did not refer to itself as a private
company. Richard McGregor, author of The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers,
said that this is "a definitional distinction that has been essential to the company's receipt of state
support at crucial points in its development".[64] McGregor argued that "Huawei's status as a genuine
collective is doubtful."[64] Huawei's position has shifted in 2019 when, Dr. Song Liuping, Huawei's
chief legal officer, commented on the US government ban, said: "Politicians in the US are using the
strength of an entire nation to come after a private company." (emphasis added).[65]

Leadership[edit]
Ren Zhengfei is the founder and CEO of Huawei and has the power to veto any decisions made by
the board of directors.[66][67]
Board of Directors[edit]
Huawei disclosed its list of board of directors for the first time in 2010.[68] Liang Hua is the current
chair of the board. As of 2019, the members of the board are Liang Hua, Guo Ping, Xu Zhijun, Hu
Houkun, Meng Wanzhou (CFO and deputy chairwoman, currently out on bail in Vancouver,[69] after
being arrested there on December 1, 2018, after an extradition request of US authorities on
suspicion of Iran sanctions evasion[70]), Ding Yun, Yu Chengdong, Wang Tao, Xu Wenwei, Shen-Han
Chiu, Chen Lifang, Peng Zhongyang, He Tingbo, Li Yingtao, Ren Zhengfei, Yao Fuhai, Tao Jingwen,
and Yan Lida.[71]
Executives[edit]
Guo Ping is the Chairman of Huawei Device, Huawei's mobile phone division.[72] Huawei's Chief
Ethics & Compliance Officer is Zhou Daiqi[73] who is also Huawei's Communist Party Committee
Secretary.[74] Their Chief legal officer is Song Liuping.[65]

Ownership[edit]
Huawei claims it is an employee-owned company, but it remains a point of dispute.[66][75] Ren Zhengfei
retains approximately 1 percent of the shares of Huawei's holding company, Huawei Investment &
Holding,[75] with the remainder of the shares held by a trade union committee (not a trade union per
se, and the internal governance procedures of this committee, its members, its leaders or how they
are selected all remain undisclosed to the public) that is claimed to be representative of Huawei's
employee shareholders.[66][76] The company's trade union committee is registered with and pay dues
to the Shenzhen federation of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, which is controlled by
the Chinese Communist Party.[77] This is also due to a limitation in Chinese law preventing limited
liability companies from having more than 50 shareholders.[78] About half of Huawei staff participate in
this scheme (foreign employees are not eligible), and hold what the company calls "virtual restricted
shares". These shares are non-tradable and are allocated to reward performance.[79] When
employees leave Huawei, their shares revert to the company, which compensates them for their
holding.[80] Although employee shareholders receive dividends,[76] their shares do not entitle them to
any direct influence in management decisions, but enables them to vote for members of the 115-
person Representatives’ Commission from a pre-selected list of candidates.[76] The Representatives’
Commission selects Huawei Holding's Board of Directors and Board of Supervisors.[81]
Scholars have found that, after a few stages of historical morphing, employees do not own a part of
Huawei through their shares. Instead, the “virtual stock is a contract right, not a property right; it
gives the holder no voting power in either Huawei Tech or Huawei Holding, cannot be transferred,
and is cancelled when the employee leaves the firm, subject to a redemption payment from Huawei
Holding TUC at a low fixed price”.[82][66] The same scholars added, "given the public nature of trade
unions in China, if the ownership stake of the trade union committee is genuine, and if the trade
union and its committee function as trade unions generally function in China, then Huawei may be
deemed effectively state-owned."[66]
In September 2019 Huawei filed a defamation lawsuit against a French researcher and a television
show which had hosted her.[83] The researcher, with the Foundation for Strategic Research, had
noted that Ren Zhengfei was a former PLA member and that Huawei functions as an arm of the
Chinese government.[84] This was the first time Huawei had sued a researcher for defamation.[85]

Partners[edit]
As of the beginning of 2010, approximately 80% of the world's top 50 telecoms companies had
worked with Huawei.[86]
Prominent partners include:

 Bell Canada[87]
 BT[88]
 Clearwire[86]
 Cox Communications
 Globe Telecom[89]
 Motorola[90][91]
 Orange[92]
 PLDT[93]
 Portugal Telecom
 Google
 T-Mobile
 TalkTalk
 Vodafone[94][95]
Since 2016, German camera company Leica has established a partnership with Huawei, and Leica
cameras will be co-engineered into Huawei smartphones, including the P and Mate Series. The first
smartphone to be co-engineered with a Leica camera was the Huawei P9.[96]
In August 2019, Huawei collaborated with eyewear company Gentle Monster and
released smartglasses.[97] In November 2019, Huawei partners with Devialet and unveiled a new
specifically designed speaker, the Sound X. [98]
In 2020, Huawei partnered with Dutch navigation device company TomTom for an alternative to
Google Maps.[99]

Products and services[edit]

 Carrier Network Business Group – provides wireless networks, fixed networks, global
services, carrier software, core networks and network energy solutions that are deployed by
communications carriers
 Enterprise Business Group – Huawei's industry sales team
 Consumer Business Group – the core of this group is "1 + 8 + N" where "1" represents
mobile phones; "8" represents tablets, PCs, VR devices, wearables, smart screens, smart audio,
smart speakers, and head units; and "N" represents ubiquitous Internet of Things (IoT)
devices[101]
 Cloud & AI Business Group - Huawei's server, storage products and cloud services
Huawei announced its Enterprise business in January 2011 to provide network
infrastructure, fixed and wireless communication, data center, and cloud computing for global
telecommunications customers.[102]