Huawei said sales revenue grew 15% in 2014 to reach US$46 billion, driven by accelerating demand for cloud computing, big data, smart devices and the Internet of Things (IoT).
"By 2025, there will be more than 100 billion connections worldwide, creating a market of unprecedented scale," said Ken Hu, the Chinese kit maker’s rotating CEO, in a new year message published on 31 December. "How to store and process, transmit and distribute, acquire and present these massive data are enormous challenges as well as strategic opportunities to Huawei."
To help it tap this potential, he said the company plans to improve agility by streamlining back offices and decentralising authority. He said Huawei will also shift from function-centred operations to project-centred operations, and step up its efforts to safeguard its customers’ privacy and cyb er security.
Furthermore, Huawei plans to improve staff motivation by providing targeted incentives and fast-track promotions to high-performing employees.
"Mechanisms must be put in place to ensure outstanding people can be brought in, engaged and retained," said Hu.
Lauding Huawei’s recent achievements, Hu pointed to 4G network contracts in nine major traffic hubs including Moscow, Rio de Janeiro, and Bangalore. He also drew attention to China’s 4G market – where Huawei’s equipment is deployed in every provincial capital – and the company’s efforts on network functions virtualisation (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN) in partnership with 20 telcos.
"We should be proud that more and more carriers have recognised Huawei as a trusted strategic partner," he said.
On the enterprise side, Hu highlighted Huawei’s global data centre footprint, which now stands at 480, including 160 cloud data centres, and its collaboration with Accenture and SAP on cloud computing and big data.
He also talked up the performance of its new consumer device brand, Honor, which has shipped more than 20 million smartphones worldwide.
"ICT technologies, notably mobile broadband, cloud computing, big data, and IoT, are becoming the engine that drives transformations in many industries," Hu said. "ICT infrastructure has shifted from a support system that helps improve efficiency to a production system that drives value creation, and has become a new factor of production, alongside land, labour, and capital."
