Huawei
Huawei Corporation is a Chinese multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Longgang, Shenzhen, Guangdong. Its main product lines include telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics, electric vehicle autonomous driving systems, and rooftop solar power products. The company was founded in Shenzhen in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, a veteran officer of the People's Liberation Army.
Initially focused on manufacturing phone switches, Huawei has expanded to more than 170 countries to include building telecommunications network infrastructures, providing equipment, operational and consulting services, and manufacturing communications devices for the consumer market. In 2012, it surpassed Ericsson to become the world's largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer. As of 2025, Huawei is the largest smartphone vendor in China with an 18.1% market share. Huawei's biggest area of business is in telecommunications equipment. Its largest customer is the Chinese government.
Amidst its rise, Huawei has been accused of intellectual property infringement, for which it has settled with 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 opposition 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 United States.
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 January 2018, the United States alleged that its sanctions against Iran were violated by Huawei, which was subsequently restricted from doing business with American companies. The US government also requested the extradition of Huawei's chief financial officer from Canada. In June 2019, Huawei cut jobs at its Santa Clara research center, and in December, Ren said it was moving the center 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 banned sales or import of equipment made by Huawei out of national security concerns, and other countries such as all members of the Five Eyes, Quad members India and Japan, and ten European Union states have since also banned or restricted Huawei products.
Etymology
According to the company founder Ren Zhengfei, the name Huawei comes from a slogan he saw on a wall, Zhonghua youwei meaning "China has achievements". 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 brand recognition campaign instead to encourage a pronunciation closer to "Wah-Way" using the words "Wow Way". Ren stated, "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'."
History
Early years
In the 1980s, the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government endeavored to overhaul the nation'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 in registered capital from Ren Zhengfei and five other investors at the time of its founding, when each contributed RMB 3,500. These five initial investors gradually withdrew their investments in Huawei. The Wall Street Journal has suggested, however, that Huawei received approximately "$46 billion in loans and other support, coupled with $25 billion in tax cuts" since the Chinese government had a vested interest in fostering a company to compete against Apple and Samsung.
Ren sought to reverse engineer foreign technologies with local researchers. China borrowed liberally from Qualcomm and other industry leaders in order to enter the market. At a time when all of China's telecommunications technology was imported from abroad, Ren hoped to build a domestic Chinese telecommunications 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 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 employees in research and development and began its own independent commercialization of PBX switches targeting hotels and small enterprises.
In order to grow despite difficult competition from Alcatel, Lucent, and Nortel Networks, in 1992 Huawei focused on low-income and difficult-to-access market niches. Huawei's sales force traveled from village to village in underdeveloped regions, gradually moving into more developed areas.
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.
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". In 1994, founder Ren Zhengfei had a meeting with General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party 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.
In the 1990s, Canadian telecom giant Nortel outsourced production of their entire product line to Huawei. They subsequently outsourced much of their product engineering to Huawei as well.
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.
Foreign expansion
Beginning in the late 1990s, Huawei built communications networks throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, with its first entrance into the African telecommunications market in 1998. It has become the most important Chinese telecommunications company operating in these regions.In 1997, Huawei won a contract to provide fixed-line network products to Hong Kong company Hutchison Whampoa. Later that year, Huawei launched wireless GSM-based products and eventually expanded to offer CDMA and UMTS. In 1999, the company opened a research and development centre in Bengaluru, India to develop a wide range of telecom software.
Huawei received support as part of China's Go Out policy beginning in the late 1990s.
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.
In 2004, Huawei signed a $10 billion credit line with China Development Bank 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.
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.
In 2007, Huawei began a joint venture with US 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 cyber threats".
In May 2008, Australian carrier Optus announced that it would establish a technology research facility with Huawei in Sydney. 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. Huawei delivered one of the world's first LTE/EPC commercial networks for TeliaSonera in Oslo, Norway in 2009. Norway-based telecommunications Telenor instead selected Ericsson due to security concerns with Huawei.
In July 2010, Huawei was included in the Global Fortune 500 2010 list published by the US 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.
In October 2012, it was announced that Huawei would move its UK headquarters to Green Park, Reading, Berkshire.
Huawei has also expanded its operations in Ireland since 2016. As well as a headquarters in Dublin, it has facilities in Cork and County Westmeath.
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, cloud computing, big data, and other next-generation information and communications technology. It aims to be one of the world's five largest cloud players in the near future.
In 2017, Huawei and the government of Malaysia began cooperating to develop public security programs and Malaysian Smart City programs, as well as a related lab in Kuala Lumpur. In April 2019, Huawei established the Huawei Malaysia Global Training Centre at Cyberjaya, Malaysia.
Huawei has had a major role in building, by 2020, approximately 70% of Africa's 4G networks.
In November 2020, Telus Mobility dropped Huawei in favor of Samsung, Ericsson, and Nokia for their 5G/Radio Access Network