In a letter sent to Huawei 195,000 employees by the company Rotating Chairman Eric Xu about the company business summary in 2022 and 2023 forecast, he said: “Fire is the test of gold; adversity is the touchstone of strength. Ghanim Al-Muftah, an ambassador for the 2022 FIFA World Cup who was born without the lower half of his body, is a testament to just how unyielding – and yet glorious – life can be. As long as we hold fast to our ideals, nothing can weigh us down. The future brims with hope, and this is what drives us forward. Any bumps along the way will only make the journey more valuable and meaningful.”
The Rotating Chairman also said: “2023 will be the first year that we return to business as usual with external restrictions still in place. It will be a crucial year for us, so we need to actively drive progress, keep inspiring passion across the organization, and further hone our capabilities. We need to be proactive about improving the business environment and more effectively managing risks. This is the only way we can reach our business goals for 2023 and lay a solid foundation for Huawei’s continued survival and development.”
“we successfully pulled ourselves out of crisis mode. US restrictions are now our new normal, and we’re back to business as usual. It’s been all hands-on deck for the past year, with every single member of the Huawei team working hard to navigate challenges and improve the quality of our operations. We expect to round off the year with a total revenue of 636.9 billion yuan, which is in line with forecast.” Eric continued in his letter.
The Huawei senior executive mentioned that while the company smartphone business has been heavily impacted, in the device business Huawei has decided to focus on developing innovative products in five major user scenarios: smart office, fitness & health, smart home, easy travel, and entertainment.
In the latter, R&D was mentioned to be a continuous focus for Huawei. “We keep investing heavily in R&D and innovation to deliver high-quality products. Huawei is increasing investment in the IAS business, with R&D investment expected to exceed 1 billion US dollars in 2022.”
According to WIPO, for the fifth consecutive year, Huawei was the top filer in 2021 with 6,952 published Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications. In 2021 alone, Huawei filed nearly 1,500 PCT applications. Under WIPO’s Madrid System, Huawei has filed 98 international trademark applications, ranking No. 4. This marked the second time that Huawei entered the world’s top five.
The letter mentioned that Huawei Cloud has maintained rapid growth throughout the year and has been widely recognized by customers across a number of sectors like government, finance, manufacturing, and Internet. Huawei Cloud continuously expands its global presence while sticking to the Everything as a Service strategy.
Against this backdrop, Huawei has defined its approach of “Embracing the 5.5G Era: Striding Towards the Intelligent World”, creating an innovation roadmap for the future. Carriers need new digital capabilities, including digital infrastructure, digital services, and digital operations. In response, Huawei has developed a GUIDE business blueprint by drawing on its years of experience with carriers worldwide. This business blueprint will be a valuable reference for carriers’ business and target network planning.
The letter specifies 4 priorities for the company sustainable survival. The first one is maintaining heavy investment in R&D. The other 3 priorities are securing victory through quality, Commitment to progress and seizing opportunities to grow the harvest, and pressing ahead with transformation to inject vitality into the organization and motivate everyone to forge ahead
Huawei ranked 23rd on the World’s Best Employers 2022 by Forbes. As of the end of 2021, Huawei had approximately 195,000 employees, with about 107,000 (54.8%) working in R&D.
