- 2021-01-05
Huawei's international journey
Huawei gradually dominates the global telecommunications equipment market, which has brought many challenges to the company, including persuading overseas consumers how to pronounce Huawei correctly when calling Huawei, which is "wah-way" instead of "who-" are-we" (who we are).
But in 2018, this 31-year-old Chinese company encountered unprecedented rigorous scrutiny and was caught in the quagmire of the Sino-US trade war. Worries about the use of Huawei equipment in European telecommunications networks are also deepening.
The arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, has had an impact on the telecommunications group. Insiders believe that the move is a personal blow to Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei and Meng Wanzhou’s father. In 1987, Ren Zhengfei founded Huawei. His office was located in his apartment in Shenzhen. The initial business was to sell fixed-line equipment imported from Hong Kong to mainland China. The former PLA officer quickly expanded his business, reselling switches in rural areas of China that were largely ignored by established Western companies.
Huawei later developed its own equipment and was promoted by the Chinese government. A contract with Hutchison Whampoa in 1997 opened the door for Huawei to sell its products to Hong Kong and other parts of the world.
In 2001, Huawei set up an office in London with 30 employees. Four years later, Huawei and British Telecom (BT) signed a landmark agreement to provide equipment for British Telecom's "21st Century Network" strategy. The agreement laid the foundation for Huawei to win the business of all British telecom suppliers and many of their European counterparts.
Huawei was initially seen as a cheap and pleasant manufacturer of products, competing for business with many older competitors. Now that Huawei has grown into the world's largest supplier of telecommunications equipment, Huawei now argues that it has the most advanced equipment that can apply fifth-generation mobile technology (5G).
Huawei is proud of the strength of its R&D team, which has nearly 80,000 employees. The shift at its Shenzhen headquarters has been compared to the exit and admission of London's Wembley Stadium.
Ben Verwaayen, the former CEO of British Telecom and who signed the landmark agreement with Huawei in 2005, recalled the first meeting with Ren Zhengfei in a luxurious wooden house outside the World Economic Forum (WEF) venue in Davos in 2011.
At the time, Vaughan was the president of Alcatel-Lucent, a French-American telecommunications equipment company. He said that Alcatel-Lucent has an excellent understanding of products and markets, but Huawei is "far better than us" in bringing products to the market.
"They are very focused and they are very pricey," he said. "This is how they built their kingdom. Even then they focused on big companies like Apple."
Huawei only started selling smartphones in 2009. In the second quarter of 2018, Huawei surpassed Apple to become the world's second largest smartphone manufacturer.
Duncan Clark, founder of Beijing-based technology consulting firm BDA, believes that Huawei is the ultimate disruptor to disrupt the US telecom market.
He said: "They mix into the gatherings of suppliers and operators, into the kind of golf club network." "The method they take is to act faster, while providing high quality at a lower price. Products. In the process, they let everyone see the inefficiency of the U.S. economy and pose a systemic challenge to U.S. technology companies."
Within Huawei, Ren Zhengfei is admired. He told employees to cultivate "wolf nature", and it is reported that employees will follow his instructions, even if it means working overtime or accepting the hardship of expatriates. Even his Western critics admit that this radical approach has allowed the company to achieve amazing success.
Western critics often use Ren Zhengfei’s history as an officer in the People’s Liberation Army to warn that the company’s equipment will be easily monitored by the Chinese military. Huawei’s competitor, another Chinese telecommunications equipment company ZTE (ZTE), which has developed rapidly and has clashed with US authorities, has often faced similar criticisms.
However, Huawei does not like to be compared with ZTE. Huawei claims to have no direct contact with the Chinese government or the Chinese military. The company is owned by employees, while ZTE has obvious connections with the government and relies heavily on orders from Chinese state-owned telecom operators.
The low-key and down-to-earth behind becoming a leader
It is not the first time that Huawei has become a hot spot of public opinion, but this technology company with global competitiveness in China has maintained a low-key style. Behind the rapid development of core competitiveness, Huawei’s CEO Ren Zhengfei almost never accepts media interviews directly, nor does it appear in various entrepreneur selection and awards activities. It also requires all employees to keep a low profile.
This down-to-earth attitude is also reflected in Huawei's expansion of the global market. Huawei seldom makes the rhetoric of occupying the market like other multinational companies, but the steps of "going out" can be said to be one step at a time.
Huawei’s overseas expansion has been going on for 20 years, from Russia’s first overseas contract to Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and finally to the European and Japanese markets. Especially in recent years, the pace of attempts to enter the US market has been repeated. Repeated defeats and repeated defeats.
In order to meet actual needs, continue to study technological breakthroughs, to avoid vicious competition and establish cooperative relations with rivals, to win the support of local governments, universities and other stakeholders, etc., Huawei has been very solid in every step of the overseas market, and finally won With loyal partners, Huawei has become an industry leader by relying on solid technology instead of public relations and marketing methods.