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| Karl Song, vice president of Huawei's Corporate Communications, is seen on the screen as he speaks online at a press conference held by its Korean unit at the Four Seasons Hotel Seoul, Tuesday. Korea Times photo by Baek Byung-yeul |
By Baek Byung-yeul
Huawei will keep increasing its expenditures in research and development activities despite the external business environment, as the Chinese IT company is still impeded by U.S. sanctions, the firm's communication director said Tuesday.
"The harder things get, the more we are investing in the future. In 2021, we increased our R&D investment to $22.4 billion, representing 22.4 percent of our total revenue. Both our R&D expenses and R&D expense ratio reached a 10-year high in 2021 and Huawei ranked second in the 2021 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard," Karl Song, vice president of Huawei's Corporate Communications, said at a press conference held by its Korean unit in Seoul.
"Moving forward, we will continue investing heavily in R&D to strengthen our innovation in systems engineering and drive fundamental changes in three areas: fundamental theories, architecture and software."
The Chinese networking equipment giant held its annual press conference in China on March 28. At the event, the company reported its net profit in 2021 increased by 75.9 percent to 113.7 billion yuan ($17.8 billion) compared to the same period of 2020, though its revenue decreased year-on-year by 28.6 percent to 636.6 billion yuan.
"Despite a revenue decline in 2021, our ability to make a profit and generate cash flow is increasing, and we are more capable of dealing with uncertainty," said Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei. The event was her first public appearance after returning to China. Meng, who is also the daughter of the company's founder Ren Zhengfei, was detained in Canada for almost three years since 2018 due to a U.S. extradition request, and returned to her country in September 2021.
In 2019, the U.S. also imposed a trade ban on the Chinese company, citing national security concerns. The sanctions prohibited the company from using Google's Android operating system in its new smartphones, severely damaging the company's smartphone business.
Revealing the company's future strategy, Song said Huawei will work on helping companies in various areas achieve digitalization through its products.
"Over the past year, together with our carrier customers and partners, we have supported the digital transformation of more than 20 industries, including ports, manufacturing, coal mining, steel production and chemicals. To date, we have signed more than 3,000 commercial contracts for industrial 5G applications worldwide," he said.
Eco-friendly power generation, which has emerged as a global trend, is also considered one of the growth engines for Huawei, which has improved energy efficiency with long-standing innovative technologies, the vice president said.
"Green development has become a globally recognized mission. As a leader in the ICT industry, we have been developing innovative green technologies that make ICT products more energy efficient. By the end of 2021, we had helped carriers in more than 100 countries and regions deploy green site solutions. These solutions have helped save roughly 84.2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and reduce CO2 emissions by about 40 million tons," he said.
Huawei Korea CEO Sun Luyuan said the Korean unit will cooperate with local companies and strengthen its efforts to cultivate talented people to help them achieve digitalization and carbon neutrality.
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