Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various smart devices.
The corporation was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, a former officer in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).[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]
Huawei has deployed its products and services in more than 170 countries and areas.[7] It overtook Ericsson in 2012 as the largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer in the world,[8] and overtook Apple in 2018 as the second-largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world, behind Samsung Electronics.[9] In 2018, Huawei reported annual revenue of US$108.5 billion.[10] In July 2020, Huawei surpassed Samsung and Apple in the number of phones shipped worldwide for the first time.[11] 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.[11][12][13]
Name
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” (Chinese: 中华有为; pinyin: Zhōng huá yǒu wéi), when he was starting up the company and needed a name.[36] Zhonghua or Hua means China,[37] while youwei means “promising/to show promise”.[38][39] Huawei has also been translated as “splendid achievement” or “China is able”, which are possible readings of the name.[40] In Chinese pinyin, the name is Huáwéi,[41] and pronounced [xwǎwéɪ] 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.[42] The company had considered changing the name in English out of concern that non-Chinese people may find it hard to pronounce,[43] 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”.[44][45]
Partners
As of the beginning of 2010, approximately 80% of the world’s top 50 telecoms companies had worked with Huawei.[101]
In 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.[102]
In August 2019, Huawei collaborated with eyewear company Gentle Monster and released smartglasses.[103] In November 2019, Huawei partners with Devialet and unveiled a new specifically designed speaker, the Sound X.[104] In October 2020, Huawei released its own mapping service, Petal Maps, which was developed in partnership with Dutch navigation device manufacturer TomTom.[105]
Products and services
Huawei is organized around three core business segments:[106]
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[107]
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.[108]
Telecommunication networks
Huawei offers mobile and fixed softswitches, plus next-generation home location register and Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystems (IMS). Huawei sells xDSL, passive optical network (PON) and next-generation PON (NG PON) on a single platform. The company also offers mobile infrastructure, broadband access and service provider routers and switches (SPRS). Huawei’s software products include service delivery platforms (SDPs), base station subsystems, and more.[109]
Global services
Huawei Global Services provides telecommunications operators with equipment to build and operate networks as well as consulting and engineering services to improve operational efficiencies.[110] These include network integration services such as those for mobile and fixed networks; assurance services such as network safety; and learning services, such as competency consulting.[109]
Devices
Huawei’s Devices division provides white-label products to content-service providers, including USB modems, wireless modems and wireless routers for mobile Wi-Fi,[111] embedded modules, fixed wireless terminals, wireless gateways, set-top boxes, mobile handsets and video products.[112] Huawei also produces and sells a variety of devices under its own name, such as the IDEOS smartphones, tablet PCs and Huawei Smartwatch.[113][114]
Phones
Main article: List of Huawei phones
Huawei is the second-biggest smartphone maker in the world, after Samsung, as of the first quarter of 2019.
Their current portfolio of phones has two high-end smartphone lines, the Huawei Mate series and Huawei P series. Under the company’s current hardware release cadence, P series phones are typically directed towards mainstream consumers as the company’s flagship smartphones, refining and expanding upon technologies introduced in Mate series devices (which are typically positioned towards early adopters).[115]
Cheaper handsets fall under its Honor brand.[116] Honor was created in order to elevate Huawei-branded phones as premium offerings. In 2020, Huawei agreed to sell the Honor brand to a state-owned enterprise of the Shenzhen municipal government. Consequently Honor was cut off from access to Huawei’s IPs, which consists of more than 100,000 active patents by the end of 2020, and additionally cannot tap into Huawei’s large R&D resources where $20 billion had been committed for 2021. However Wired magazine noted in 2021 that Honor devices still had not differentiated their software much from Huawei phones and that core apps and certain engineering features, like the Honor-engineered camera features looked “virtually identical’ across both phones.[34][116]
Laptops
Main article: Huawei MateBook series
Huawei Matebook 2-in-1 tablet
In 2016, Huawei entered the laptop markets with the release of its Huawei MateBook series of laptops.[127] They have continued to release laptop models in this series into 2020 with their most recent models being the MateBook X Pro and Matebook 13 2020.[128]
Tablets
Main article: Huawei MatePad Pro
The HUAWEI MatePad Pro, launched in November 2019.[107] Huawei is number one in the Chinese tablet market and number two globally as of 4Q 2019.[129]
Wearables
Main article: Huawei Watch
The Huawei Watch is an Android Wear-based smartwatch developed by Huawei. It was announced at 2015 Mobile World Congress on 1 March 2015,[130] and was released at Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin on 2 September 2015.[131] It is the first smartwatch produced by Huawei.[131] Their latest watch, the Huawei Watch GT 2e, was launched in India in May, 2020.[132]
Automobile
In December 2021, the AITO M5 was unveiled as the first vehicle to be developed in cooperation with Huawei. The model was developed mainly by Seres and is essentially a restyled Seres SF5 crossover.[133] The model was sold under a new brand called AITO, which stands for “Adding Intelligence to Auto” and uses Huawei DriveONE and HarmonyOS, while the Seres SF5 used Huawei DriveONE and HiCar.[134]