Huawei

"In 2020, I could have picked up face masks that were branded Foxconn (the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturer), BYD (the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer), or JD.com (China’s second-largest e-commerce platform). Companies retooled some of their production lines to get into the masks and money business. Chinese conglomerates rarely hesitate to go after the core business lines of others. Huawei, for example, expanded from making telecommunications infrastructure equipment to tread on companies like Xiaomi, which makes smartphones. And both have now leapt into the automotive business. This sort of expansion is driven both by the fiercely competitive market environments and by government subsidies that make it easier for companies to try their hand at making new products."

"China leads the world in deploying ultrahigh-voltage transmission lines, high-speed rail, and 5G networks. Chinese manufacturers make machine tools—die-casting machines, steel presses, robotic arms—that approach German and Japanese levels of quality. They’ve muscled out most other Asian competitors on consumer electronics. Phone makers like Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi tapped into the worker and component ecosystem that Apple helped to build. In 2025, the world’s largest phone makers are Apple, Samsung, and a half dozen Chinese firms that concentrate on sales to developing countries."

"Apple’s messaging wasn’t public, but if it had been, it would’ve turned received wisdom on its head. In 2017, a *Wall Street Journal* article had opined: “Longer term, though, Apple’s business is out of step with the Chinese government’s goal to reduce its dependence on expensive foreign technology, and facilitate the development of homegrown competitors like Huawei.” In fact, the opposite was true. The technology transfer that Apple facilitated made it the biggest corporate supporter of Made in China 2025, Beijing’s ambitious, anti-Western plan to sever its reliance on foreign technology."

"Such tactics accelerated after 2017 but had been going on for years. One former Apple executive recalls, around 2012, being with one of Terry Gou’s top executives when they saw indigenous Chinese companies holding signs outside the Foxconn factory, recruiting talent. “Holy shit, I’m gonna lose my best guys here!’ ” the Foxconn executive exclaimed. Recognizing the two, a top engineer walked over and offered his hand: “It was a pleasure working with you. I’m working for Huawei now.” As the engineer walked away, the two executives were silent for a few seconds. Then the Apple executive turned and said, “Who the fuck is Huawei?”"

"Chapter 36, “5 Alarm Fire,” is exclusively sourced from more than 1,000 pages of documents including emails among Apple’s top executives; internal studies of China, India, and Huawei; and depositions of key figures including Tim Cook. This material was made public in December 2023, several months before Apple settled the case, but through some miracle it hadn’t been noticed or reported on. I spent more than thirty hours sifting through the documents and the resulting narrative is, I believe, the first presentation of the material outside of a courtroom. Other chapters were supplemented by original material derived from unnamed sources. These include notes from a series of Steve Jobs–led meetings in the summer of 1997; internal surveys of Chinese consumer sentiment in 2010; internal presentations on labor demand and churn in Chinese factories; and other material discussing Apple/supplier relationships and its dilemmas with China from after 2015."

"In 2000, Ren Zhengfei ranked third on the Forbes list of China’s richest and had an estimated personal wealth of 500 million USD. In 2004, Forbes launched a list of the world’s top 100 largest private companies outside the United States, where his company became the only Chinese firm to make the list, ranking 79th with a revenue of 2.7 billion USD."

"In 1987, at the age of 43, Ren Zhengfei, a retired People’s Liberation Army regiment-level officer, founded Huawei with a registered capital of 20,000 RMB gathered from various sources. At the time, apart from Ren Zhengfei, perhaps no one expected this small company, born in a dilapidated workshop, to soon rewrite the history of telecommunications manufacturing in China and even the world."

"In just over ten years, Huawei transformed from an unknown small company to an electronics giant with a sales revenue of 22 billion RMB and a profit of 3 billion RMB, expanding its assets by 1000 times and gradually becoming a leader among Chinese enterprises."

"Ren Zhengfei has always been low-key. His understated style of doing things may only be comparable to IBM’s former CEO, Lou Gerstner. Ren Zhengfei issued a strict order to Huawei’s senior management: “Unless it’s an important customer or partner, all other activities are not up for discussion. Whoever persuades me will have their position revoked.” He avoids various interviews, meetings, and selections—whether they directly benefit Huawei’s image, government activities, or media events, he rejects them all."

"In 2006, Newsweek wrote that although founder Ren Zhengfei has maintained a low profile, Huawei has stood on the same competitive line with international telecom giants such as Nortel Networks, Lucent Technologies, Alcatel, and Cisco Systems, and it often wins more network operation businesses from among them."

"Ren Zhengfei once said, “Experts, experts, knowing a little makes you an expert, but knowing a lot, what is that called? Why does the term ‘expert’ exist? Because human life is limited and can only understand a little."

"Huawei, “Zhonghua Youwei” (Chinese Potential), has risen. Huawei seizes opportunities, carefully crafting its brand and has gained a world-level “dialogue right.” Its sudden rise is considered a “nightmare for multinational telecom equipment giants.”"

"Amid the telecom industry’s “winter”, Ren Zhengfei continued with determination. He firmly believed “spring” would certainly arrive and waited optimistically in the chill. After eight years of development, Huawei’s 3G bore fruit. At the end of 2003, it successfully launched the country’s first WCDMA/GSM dual-mode phone. In February 2004, it introduced China’s first WCDMA phone at the Cannes exhibition in France. On November 15, 2004, Huawei officially launched three mature commercial WCDMA terminals in Hong Kong, becoming one of the few global suppliers offering end-to-end 3G solutions. By early 2005, Huawei had showcased a series of 3G terminals at the Cannes and Germany’s CeBit exhibitions, drawing increasing attention to its 3G offerings."

"In the book “Built to Last,” when discussing how great companies remain enduring, the author states: “Visionary companies excel not because of detailed strategic planning, but through experimentation, trial and error, or more accurately, by sheer opportunity.”"

"If Haier and Lenovo were the flagships of Chinese enterprises over the past 20 years, then the navigator for the next 20 years is likely to be Huawei. Ren Zhengfei, leading Huawei, has taken it to the world, leaving Huawei’s mark in every corner of the globe."

"Ren Zhengfei often says: “Do business, do business of height.” This is also his consistent pursuit. For this goal, Ren Zhengfei leads his team, traveling far and wide to build influence globally. As Huawei’s corporate leader, his foresight and strategic vision are indeed admirable."

"Ren Zhengfei, the president of China’s largest communication equipment manufacturer, has been invited by national leaders to visit abroad many times, but has never officially accepted any media interviews. Reporters from major media outlets complain that while they have interviewed many famous entrepreneurs, they have never managed to interview him."

"In 1994, Huawei participated in an Asia-Pacific international exhibition and launched its independently developed large-scale exchange without missing the chance, gaining significant influence. That year, the central government proposed the village-to-village communication plan, and rural areas across the country eagerly connected phone systems. Huawei seized this opportunity, tailoring its offerings to rural realities by launching the ETS450D, which could cover an area of 7,000 square kilometers with a single base station, bypassing various obstacles with low cost and guaranteed quality, rapidly becoming a major supplier for the “village-to-village” project."

"The annual “Hajj pilgrimage” is grand in scale, with tens of thousands of Muslims from around the world flocking to Mecca in Saudi Arabia to participate. During this period, the telecom system operates under heavy load and often experiences interruptions, which is a major headache for Saudi Telecom. In 2006, Saudi Telecom adopted Huawei’s large-capacity, high-processing-capability equipment to achieve stable network operation during the “Hajj pilgrimage” for the first time. In 2007, the number of pilgrims grew even larger. More than three million people gathered in a ten-square-kilometer area for collective pilgrimage, with the total volume of calls increasing by nearly 30% compared to the previous year, peaking at 19 times the usual rate. The frequency of SMS and switching was also extremely high. Huawei’s wireless technology once again demonstrated its capabilities, helping Saudi Arabia smoothly navigate the busy pilgrimage period."

"To finance 3G, in 2001, Huawei sold its electrical department, AnSheng Electric, for 6 billion RMB to American Emerson Electric. By the end of 2006, Huawei’s 3G investment had reached nearly 5 billion RMB."

"In Ren Zhengfei’s dictionary, there is no word for “difficulty.” He rose to challenges, abandoning some short-term benefits for long-term development, thereby achieving greater accomplishments."

"Remember, knowledge is power. If others don’t study, you should. Don’t follow the crowd. In the future, if you’re able, help your younger siblings.”"

"An incident during university left a deep impression on Ren Zhengfei. Once, his mother gave him two shirts. He knew how hard it was to come by and was moved to tears. The year he got into university required him to bring his own bedding, which was a tough challenge for his parents. Later, his mother had an idea. It was graduation time, and she collected the discarded worn-out sheets from graduate students, patched them up, washed them, and prepared them for him to take along, which helped him get through the five years of university life."

"In the three months leading up to the college entrance exam, his mother often secretly gave him a small corn cake in the morning. It was precisely because of this that he could study with peace of mind and get into university. Ren Zhengfei later said with emotion, “If not for that, I might not have joined a company like Huawei. There would have been one more pig farmer in society or one more skilled craftsman on the street. This little corn cake was scrounged from the mouths of my parents and siblings. I have no way to repay them.”"

"Play is itself quite a story. I founded it in 2005 at a time when in my opinion the Polish telecoms market was badly run, being dominated by big European companies, each of which was having to deal with tussles between its shareholders. Vodafone had a dispute with its Polish partner that ended with its Polish operation being bought by Polkomtel; France’s Vivendi and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile were fighting over their asset in Poland; and France Telecom’s Orange was having a problem with its local partner. We saw an opportunity for a fourth player to start afresh and try to capture market share, so we sneaked into the market by buying telecoms licences. We didn’t bother with 2G and decided to bid only for 3G licences. It was unheard of for a private equity company to buy licences without any experience in building the infrastructure. But we found Netia, a small fixed-line independent, to help us as a local player in the Polish market. We ended up outbidding 3, the mobile phone provider backed by Hong Kong’s Hutchison Whampoa. The key to making this work was getting funding, which we did principally from China Development Bank. We had spotted in our privatisation and tender processes for upgrading Bulgaria’s telecoms that the Chinese government has a long-term strategic plan to become a major player in telecoms infrastructure. We saw that the best kit was coming from Chinese subcontractors, so we went straight to them and found that they had big plans. We had big plans too and suggested that we work together, building a new mobile telecommunications infrastructure in eastern Europe’s biggest country, with a population of 40 million. The Chinese like to take a long-term view, so we signed a letter of intent in China at the same time as we were bidding for licences. I used the occasion of an official state visit from Iceland to China to get the deal rubber-stamped, and so in the Palace of Heavenly Peace in Tiananmen Square there was an official signing ceremony as the climax of the state visit. We signed a letter of intent to buy all the equipment from Huawei, which has since emerged from the shadows as a dominant player in global telecoms, and it lobbied China Development Bank to make its first ever major loan in Europe. In total, this loan amounted to more than $1 billion. I have a great picture of the deal being signed by us and Huawei with the presidents of Iceland and China standing behind. It was an occasion that I am sure went a long way towards getting China Development Bank’s support and resulted in Huawei sending an army of Chinese engineers to Poland, where they helped us set up the towers, transmission and other infrastructure from scratch. We entered Poland as outsiders and targeted the youth market. It was tough going for the first two years but our patience paid off, and after about four years we broke even. Today, Play is profitable and growing significantly. It now has more than 11 million customers and a 20 per cent market share…"