Huawei

Huawei Technologies Inc. is a Chinese telecommunications equipment and hardware manufacturer. It is the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. Table.Briefings provides all the news about the company. Is Huawei Chinese? Huawei was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei and is headquartered in the Chinese special economic zone of Shenzhen. The company dates back to a Chinese government program in the '80s to further develop the telecommunications infrastructure. Originally, Huawei earned its money by reselling telephone systems from Hong Kong, and thanks to high investments in research and development, from 1993 Huawei was able to offer the most powerful switching system available in the People's Republic at the time. From 1996, the Chinese government introduced a protectionist policy. Domestic telecommunications providers were promoted, while foreign competitors were made more difficult to enter the market. Huawei's international expansion Huawei concluded international cooperation agreements as early as 1997. The Chinese company then came to Europe in 2000, when a research center was opened in Stockholm. In 2002, Huawei's turnover outside of China was already USD 520 million, and just three years later, international sales exceeded domestic sales for the first time.During the coronavirus pandemic, Huawei became the largest producer of smartphones in individual quarters. The turnover of the entire group climbed to USD 136.7 billion. Huawei generated a profit of USD 9.9 billion. The company employs 197,000 people. Huawei: Allegations of plagiarism and espionage In 2002, Huawei and the American network component manufacturer Cisco faced off in court. The Americans had sued the Chinese company because the software (IOS) and hardware were very similar. However, the court only ruled in favor of Cisco in the area of software. The two companies reached an out-of-court settlement. In 2020, Hon Hai, a company from Taiwan, renounced 4G equipment from Huawei. This technology could be used by the company for espionage and pose a threat to Taiwan's national security, and the fears were not unfounded. In April 2021, a report by the consulting firm Capgemini from 2010 was made public. It stated that Huawei had been able to eavesdrop on all calls made by the six and a half million customers of KPN, the Dutch mobile operator, since 2009. These included the then Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende and various Chinese dissidents. Escalation of the dispute between Huawei and the USA In 2019, a dispute between the USA and Huawei escalated. Ostensibly, the arrest of Meng Wanzhou was to blame. The Canadian police arrested the daughter of Ren Zhengfei, the founder, at Vancouver Airport on Dec. 1, 2018. Under pressure from the USA. The country accuses the CFO of fraud and circumventing sanctions against Iraq. At the same time, the US warned against Huawei's 5G technology as it would be used for espionage, and on May 15, 2019, then US President Donald Trump declared a national telecommunications emergency. This allowed the government to prohibit business with companies from "adversarial" countries. In the eyes of the US government, the aim was to avoid "unacceptable risks" and guarantee the "safety of Americans". Impact of US sanctions on Huawei The impact of the US sanctions had a massive impact on the company's business. Google was ordered by the US government to end its cooperation with the Chinese company in May 2019. Huawei uses the Android operating system, which is provided by Google's parent company Alphabet. The company can no longer access popular Google services such as the Play Store, Gmail and Google Maps, and in August 2020, former US President Donald Trump tightened sanctions against the company. Due to the trade embargo, the company was no longer able to obtain all components for its hardware. Production was reduced by 74% in the meantime. Huawei has been blacklisted by the US government since December 2020. The authorities came to the conclusion that the company could pass on American technologies to the Chinese military. Huawei produces without American suppliers China is the only country that could produce smartphones without importing parts or raw materials. Huawei had to replace some of the individual parts. The big losers were the American suppliers ON Semiconductor, Broadcom, Qorvo and Cirrus. In 2018, the Group purchased parts worth eleven billion dollars in the USA. The companies were replaced by MediaTek (Chinese ARM processors), HiSilicon (Huawei subsidiary), Murata (sensors from Japan) and NXP (Dutch company), but Huawei's smartphone division is still suffering from the lack of Google software. Before the embargo, the Chinese company was well on its way to becoming the global market leader. The company sold almost 240 million devices worldwide in 2019. Then sales slumped to 188 million smartphones. However, it was the first half of the year that made the figures even better. The trend is clearly downwards. Which Huawei devices still have Google? All Huawei smartphones that already had a Google license before the embargo by former US President Trump are not affected. These devices still have Google and even Android 10: Huawei devices that were developed, licensed and built after the embargo no longer have Google services. These include: Can you still use Huawei? Huawei devices can still be used without Google services. However, this is limited. Popular apps such as Gmail, Playstore and Maps can no longer be used. More dramatic, however, is the fact that the Google Mobile Service (GMS) is no longer available. Messenger apps only display push notifications with a long delay, news apps often crash, Netflix and eBay sometimes cannot be opened at all. The Chinese company wants to get around the problem by offering its own apps in its own app store. Can you still use WhatsApp with Huawei? WhatsApp and Instagram cannot be used with new smartphones. The application cannot be downloaded from the Chinese company's AppGallery. There is also no corresponding app on the platform's own website. Here, reference is only made to the Google Playstore or the Apple App Store. The corresponding apps are only available on Huawei devices that still run Android. What does Huawei mean in German? The name Huawei consists of two Chinese words. The first is "Hua". This can mean "greatness" or "fame". The second part of the name is "Wei". This word has many meanings in Chinese. For example, it can mean "achievement" and "power". An exact translation of the entire name Huawei into German is therefore not possible and the pronunciation is somewhat more complex. Because there are two correct possibilities here. In Chinese, the name is pronounced something like "Wah-Wey". The "h" is only pronounced very roughly. Outside of China, however, a pronunciation that sounds like "Hu-A-Wie" has become established. It is even used in commercials. Huawei's business areas Although smartphones receive the most attention in the media, the company's core business is the development, production and provision of network infrastructure. Many experts believe that the real reason for the trade dispute with the USA is the race for supremacy in 5G technology. Huawei also supplies companies such as Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefónica with antennas for WLAN broadband networks and offers solutions for cloud computing and data centre management for companies and organizations of all sizes. The Group's German headquarters are in Düsseldorf. Among other things, the company has modernized Deutsche Bahn's GSM-R mobile network and works together with SAP. The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is also a prominent customer outside of the smartphone business. Huawei in Germany Huawei has also been represented in Germany since 2001. The headquarters of Huawei Technologies Deutschland GmbH is in Düsseldorf. The Chinese company employs a total of 2,500 people at 18 locations in Germany. These include the company's largest European research center in Munich, the capital city office in Berlin, as well as branches in Hamburg, Hanover and Stuttgart, among others. Huawei technology in Volkswagen cars In 2020, Huawei concluded a license agreement with a Volkswagen supplier. Neither Volkswagen nor Huawei disclosed which one. The cooperation relates to the networking of the Group's car models. The patents used are technical foundations of the LTE data radio (4G). Around 30 million vehicles are to be equipped with Huawei technology, and it was only in summer 2020 that Huawei announced its intention to enter the automotive industry. The Shenzhen-based company founded the new business division "Research & Development, Production, Sales and Maintenance of Auto Parts and Intelligent Automotive Systems". Together with the battery cell manufacturer Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) and the car manufacturer Changan Auto, Huawei wants to develop electric cars. All news about Huawei in German The trade dispute between the USA and Huawei, the global expansion of the 5G network and electromobility are topics that will continue to make headlines for a long time to come and will determine the future of the Chinese company. This news has significance beyond China and Huawei. All relevant news is available from the Table.media editorial team.