The rise of Huawei over the past couple of decades has bloodied the noses – and the balance sheets – of the world’s longer established telecoms vendors. To add insult to injury this week the Chinese firm’s normally limelight-shy founder and CEO spoke out about his biggest challenge: making too much money.
In a broadcast interview that conjured up images of a Chinese Scrooge McDu ck diving into a swimming pool full of gold coins, Ren Zhengfei explained the pressure he is under as the head of Huawei.
"My pressure comes from too fast growth of Huawei and too much money we make," he said at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Despite a difficult economic climate, Huawei recorded 19% profit growth last year, he explained via a translator.
Huawei will post sales of more than US$56 billion in 2015 and "we’ll grow at another 20%," Ren said.
"We don’t want to grow that much…we don’t know how to distribute the money we’ve made. We have a headache," he said, doubtless causing his major rivals to weep bitter tears of sympathy.
Other industry players need not be intimidated by Huawei’s unceasing ability to make money though.
"We do not look at the people around us as competitors. We are rather friends…We want to work together with them," Ren said.
"We divide the watermelon into eight pieces and we only want one of the eight," he added, reassuringly.
Ren also addressed a major issue that many of us believed to be Huawei’s biggest challenge…before we heard about the ‘not having a big enough piggy bank’ thing, that is.
"I never think the U.S. is not fair to Huawei," he said, in response to a question about the difficulties the Chinese vendor has faced there. As has been well documented, Huawei is effectively barred from selling network equipment into the U.S. due to national security concerns.
One of the most important characteristics of the U.S. is its openness, Ren said. "It’s this openness that Huawei should learn from the U.S. We should be broad-minded."
Regarding the national security question, Ren defended Huawei’s position, insisting the firm has not been asked to use its equipment to tap into U.S. systems.
"We have never received such a request from the Chinese government," he said. "There’s no way we can possibly penetrate into other people’s systems."
Ren’s military background and the fact that he keeps a very low profile has not helped Huawei’s image overseas, but he attempted to dispel any anxieties by explaining why he doesn’t make many public appearances.
"I’m not mysterious at all," he said. "More accurately, I’m not capable. I know nothing about technology. I know nothing about management. I know nothing about finance."
Regardless of the veracity of those statements, you’ve got to admit that he’s done alright for himself.
