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Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Native name
华为技术有限公司
Huáwèi jìshù yǒuxiàn gōngsī
Private
Industry
Founded 15 September 1987; 36 years ago (1987-09-15)
Founder Ren Zhengfei
Headquarters ,
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Ren Zhengfei (CEO)
Liang Hua (chairman)
Meng Wanzhou (deputy chairwoman & CFO)
He Tingbo (Director)
Products
Brands Huawei
Revenue Increase CN¥642.3 billion (US$87.8 billion) (2022)
Increase CN¥35.6 billion (US$5.2 billion) (2022)
Total assets Increase CN¥876.854 billion (US$140 billion) (2022)
Number of employees
207,000 (2023)
Parent Huawei Investment & Holding
Subsidiaries Caliopa
Chinasoft International
FutureWei Technologies
HexaTier
HiSilicon
iSoftStone
Huawei
Huawei
Huawei (Chinese characters).svg
"Huawei" in Simplified (top) and Traditional (bottom) Chinese characters
Simplified Chinese 华为
Traditional Chinese 華為
Literal meaning "Splendid Achievement" or "Chinese Achievement"
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Simplified Chinese 华为技术有限公司
Traditional Chinese 華為技術有限公司

Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( HWAH-way; Chinese: 华为) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong. It designs, develops, manufactures and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics, smart devices and various rooftop solar products. The corporation was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, a former officer in the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Initially focused on manufacturing phone switches, Huawei has expanded to more than 170 countries to include building telecommunications networks, providing operational and consulting services and equipment, and manufacturing communications devices for the consumer market. It overtook Ericsson in 2012 as the largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer in the world. Huawei surpassed Apple and Samsung, in 2018 and 2020, respectively, to become the largest smartphone manufacturer worldwide. Amidst its rise, Huawei has been accused of intellectual property infringement, for which it has settled with companies like Cisco.

Questions regarding the extent of state influence on Huawei have revolved around its national champions role in China, subsidies and financing support from state entities, and reactions of the Chinese government in light of oppositions in certain countries to Huawei's participation in 5G. Its software and equipment have been linked to the mass surveillance of Uyghurs and Xinjiang internment camps, drawing sanctions from the US.

The company has faced difficulties in some countries arising from concerns that its equipment may enable surveillance by the Chinese government due to perceived connections with the country's military and intelligence agencies. Huawei has argued that critics such as the US government have not shown evidence of espionage. Experts say that China's 2014 Counter-Espionage Law and 2017 National Intelligence Law can compel Huawei and other companies to cooperate with state intelligence. In 2012, Australian and US intelligence agencies concluded that a hack on Australia's telecom networks was conducted by or through Huawei, although the two network operators have disputed that information.

In the midst of a trade war between China and the United States, the US government alleged that Huawei had violated sanctions against Iran and restricted it from doing business with American companies. In June 2019, Huawei cut jobs at its Santa Clara research center, and in December Ren Zhengfei said it was moving to Canada. In 2020, Huawei agreed to sell the Honor brand to a state-owned enterprise of the Shenzhen government to "ensure its survival" under US sanctions. In November 2022, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) banned sales or import of equipment made by Huawei out of national security concerns. Other countries such as India, Japan, members of the Five Eyes, and ten European Union states have also banned or restricted Huawei products.

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. Zhonghua or Hua means China, while youwei means "promising/to show promise". Huawei has also been translated as "splendid achievement" or "China is able", which are possible readings of the name.

In Chinese pinyin, the name is Huáwéi, and pronounced in Mandarin Chinese; in Cantonese, the name is transliterated with Jyutping as Waa4-wai4 and pronounced. However, the pronunciation of Huawei by non-Chinese varies in other countries, for example "Hoe-ah-wei" in Belgium and the Netherlands.

The company had considered changing the name in English out of concern that non-Chinese people may find it 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". Ren states, "We will not change the name of our brand and will teach foreigners how to pronounce it. We have to make sure they do not pronounce it like 'Hawaii.'"

Products and services

Devices

Huawei Band 7 in Wilderness Green color
A Huawei Band 7 fitness tracker in Wilderness Green colour

Huawei's Devices division provides white-label products to content-service providers, including USB modems, wireless modems and wireless routers for mobile Wi-Fi, embedded modules, fixed wireless terminals, wireless gateways, set-top boxes, mobile handsets and video products. Huawei also produces and sells a variety of devices under its own name, such as the IDEOS smartphones, tablet PCs and Huawei Smartwatch.

Phones

Huawei is the second-biggest smartphone maker in the world, after Samsung, as of the first quarter of 2019. Their portfolio of phones includes both high-end smartphones, its Huawei Mate series and Huawei P series, and cheaper handsets that fall under its Honor brand.

Laptops

Huawei Matebook 2-in-1 tablet with Windows 10 (26627094621)
Huawei Matebook 2-in-1 tablet

In 2016, Huawei entered the laptop markets with the release of its Huawei MateBook series of laptops. 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.

Tablets

The Huawei MatePad Pro, launched in November 2019. Huawei is number one in the Chinese tablet market and number two globally as of 4Q 2019.

Wearables

The Huawei Watch is an Android Wear-based smartwatch developed by Huawei. It was released at Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin on 2 September 2015. It is the first smartwatch produced by Huawei. Their latest watch, the Huawei Watch GT 2e, was launched in India in May 2020.

Software

EMUI (Emotion User Interface)

Emotion UI (EMUI) is a ROM/OS developed by Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. and based on Google's Android Open Source Project (AOSP). EMUI is pre-installed on most Huawei Smartphone devices and its subsidiaries the Honor series.

Harmony OS

On 9 August 2019, Huawei officially unveiled Harmony OS at its inaugural developers' conference HDC in Dongguan. Huawei described Harmony as a free, microkernel-based distributed operating system for various types of hardware, with faster inter-process communication than QNX or Google's "Fuchsia" microkernel, and real-time resource allocation. The ARK compiler can be used to port Android APK packages to the OS. Huawei stated that developers would be able to "flexibly" deploy Harmony OS software across various device categories; the company focused primarily on IoT devices, including "smart displays", wearable devices, and in-car entertainment systems, and did not explicitly position Harmony OS as a mobile OS.

Huawei Mobile Services (HMS)

Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) is Huawei's solution to GMS (Google Mobile services) for Android - providing many of the same features for app developers. It also serves as the umbrella brand for Huawei's core set of mobile applications, including Huawei AppGallery, which was created as a competitor to Google's Play Store. In December 2019, Huawei unveiled HMS version 4.0, and as of 16 January 2020, the company reported that it had signed up 55,000 apps using its HMS Core software.

Automobile

Huawei has secured collaboration with a few automakers including Seres, Chery, BAIC Motor, Changan Automobile and GAC Group.

AITO

The Aito brand (问界 Wenjie) is Huawei's premium EV brand in cooperation with Seres. 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. 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.

AVATR

The Avatr (阿维塔 Aweita) brand is Huawei's premium EV brand in cooperation with Changan Automobile and CATL.

Luxeed

The Luxeed (智界 Zhijie) brand is Huawei's premium EV brand in cooperation with Chery, with the first vehicle being the Luxeed S7, previously called the Chery EH3, an upcoming premium electric executive sedan due to be unveiled in Q3 2023, and would be the first car to have the Harmony OS 4 system on board.

Huawei Solar

Huawei entered the photovoltaic (PV) market in 2011, and opened an Energy Center of Competence in Nuremberg, Germany the same year. In September 2016, Huawei integrated new manufacturing capabilities into its Eindhoven hub in the Netherlands, where it can produce 7,000 inverter units per month. In October that same year, Huawei entered the North American market and formed a strategic partnership with Strata Solar. In April 2017, Huawei enters the residential solar market with the launch of its string solar inverters and DC power optimizers.

As of 2022, Huawei is the largest producer of solar inverters in the world with a 29% market share, which saw a significant shipment increase of 83% compared to 2021.

Images for kids

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Huawei para niños

  • Lists of Chinese companies
  • HarmonyOS
  • Petal Search
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