



Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. is a Chinese multinational telecommunications equipment and consumer electronics manufacturer, headquartered in Shenzhen, China. Ren Zhengfei, a former military engineer in the People's Liberation Army, founded Huawei in 1987. At the time of its establishment, Huawei focused on manufacturing phone switches, but has since expanded 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. Huawei had over 170,000 employees as of September 2017, around 76,000 of them engaged in research and development (R&D). It has 21 R&D institutes in countries including China, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, Finland, France, Belgium, Germany, Colombia, Sweden, Ireland, India,[10] Russia, Israel, and Turkey. As of 2017 the company invested US$13.8 billion in R&D, up from US$5 billion in 2013.





Huawei has deployed its products and services in more than 170 countries, and as of 2011 it served 45 of the 50 largest telecom operators. Its networks, numbering over 1,500, reaches one third of the world's population. Huawei overtook Ericsson in 2012 as the largest telecommunications-equipment manufacturer in the world, and overtook Apple in 2018 as the second-largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world, behind Samsung Electronics. It ranks 72nd on the Fortune Global 500 list.[ In December 2018, Huawei reported that its annual revenue had risen to US$108.5 billion in 2018 (a 21% increase over 2017), surpassing $100 billion for the first time in company history.









Although successful internationally, Huawei has faced difficulties in some markets, due to allegations – primarily from the United States government – that its telecom infrastructure equipment may contain backdoors that enable unauthorised surveillance by the Chinese government entities (citing, in particular, its founder having previously worked for the People's Liberation Army). Cybersecurity concerns over Huawei intensified with the development of 5G wireless networks, with calls to prevent the company from providing equipment for them, and to prevent use of products by Huawei, or fellow Chinese telecom ZTE, by government entities. Several major U.S. wireless carriers, as well as retailer Best Buy, began to drop Huawei's products in early-2018, prompting Huawei to pull out of the market entirely due to unmarketability. The company 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.









In 2017, Huawei began helping BYD build a standardized, smart factory. In December 2018, Huawei's vice-chairperson and CFO Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada on 1 December 2018, at the request of the United States, which accuses her of violating US sanctions against Iran. The U.S. Department of Justice filed formal charges of fraud, obstruction of justice, and theft of trade secrets against Huawei in January 2019.









The name Huawei may be translated as "splendid act" or "China is able". However, pronunciation of Huawei by non-Chinese varies in other countries, for example "Hua Way" or "How Wee" in the United States and "Hoe-ah-wei" in the Netherlands. The company had considered changing the name in English as it was concerned that non-Chinese may find the name hard to pronounce, 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".









During the 1980s, Chinese government tried to modernise 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 endeavoured 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 corp, founded Huawei in 1987 in Shenzhen. Rather than relying on joint ventures to secure technology transfers from foreign companies, which were often reluctant to transfer their most advanced technologies to Chinese firms, 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.









During its first several years the company's business model consisted mainly of reselling private branch exchange (PBX) switches imported from Hong Kong. Meanwhile, it was reverse-engineering imported switches and investing heavily in research and development to manufacture its own technologies. By 1990 the company had approximately 600 R&D staff, and began its own independent commercialisation of PBX switches targeting hotels and small enterprises. 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. The company also developed collusive joint venture relationships with local authorities, whereby it would provide "dividends" to the local officials in exchange for their using Huawei products in the network. Ahrens writes that these methods were "unorthodox, bordering on corrupt," but not illegal.









In 1997, Huawei won a contract to provide fixed-line network products to Hong Kong company Hutchison Whampoa. 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. From 1998 to 2003, Huawei contracted with IBM for management consulting, and transformed its management and product development structure. After 2000, Huawei increased its speed of expansion into overseas markets, having achieved foreign sales of more than US$100 million by 2000 and establishing an R&D center in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2001, Huawei established four R&D centers in the United States, divested non-core subsidiary Avansys to Emerson for US$750 million and joined the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). By 2002, Huawei's foreign market sales had reached US$552 million.









Huawei has focused on expanding its mobile technology and networking solutions[buzzword] through a number of partnerships. In March 2003, Huawei and 3Com Corporation formed a joint venture company, 3Com-Huawei (H3C), which focused on the R&D, production and sales of data networking products. The company later divested a 49% stake in H3C for US$880 million in 2006. In 2005, Huawei began a joint venture with Siemens, called TD Tech, for developing 3G/ TD-SCDMA mobile communication technology products. The US$100 million investment gave the company a 49% stake in the venture, while Siemens held a 51% stake. In 2007, after Nokia and Siemens co-founded Nokia Siemens Networks, Siemens transferred all shares it held in TD Tech to Nokia Siemens Networks. At present, Nokia Siemens Networks and Huawei hold 51% and 49% shares of TD Tech respectively.



Courtesy : Wikipedia