Huawei and its partners have developed and released over 100 digital transformation standards for the smart city, finance, electric power, highway, aviation and healthcare industries
Chinese vendor Huawei will accelerate investments in the digitalization space, particularly in areas including connectivity, computing storage and cloud, the company’s deputy chairwoman, rotating chairwoman and CFO, Sabrina Meng, said during a keynote speech at Huawei’s Global Analyst Summit (HAS), taking place this week in Shenzhen, China.
“Digitalization is a new blue ocean for the whole ICT value chain. Enterprises that are going digital and enterprises that are helping others go digital will have huge addressable markets and huge economic benefits. Huawei will keep investing in domains like connectivity, computing, storage, and cloud … Our goal is to help organizations go digital in four stages: digitizing operations, building digital platforms, enabling platform-based intelligence and putting intelligence to use,” the executive said.
By 2026, Huawei expects that spending on global digital transformation will reach $3.4 trillion.
Meng highlighted the need of adopting a defined strategy in order to implement a digitalization project. “Strategy is essential. At its essence, digital transformation is about strategic planning and strategic choices. Any successful digital transformation has to be driven by strategy, not technology.” “Second, data is the foundation. Data only creates value when it flows across an organization, so methodical data governance is key. Integrating data across different dimensions will create even greater value.”
“Third, intelligence is the destination. Data is redefining productivity. Digitizing operations and building digital platforms helps clean, visualize and aggregate data, laying the foundation for digital transformation. Putting intelligence to use makes data on-demand, easier to understand and actionable, taking digital transformation to the next level,” Meng added.
Meng also highlighted that Huawei is enabling productivity and efficiency improvements across industries such as mining, healthcare, ports and transportation, among others. The vendor has already inked partnerships with nearly 200 power enterprises worldwide and already provided digital services for more than 20 leading oil and gas enterprises and 800 mining enterprises, she added.
Huawei and its partners have developed and released over 100 digital transformation standards for the smart city, finance, electric power, highway, aviation and healthcare industries. By the end of 2022, over 700 cities and 267 Fortune Global 500 companies worldwide had selected Huawei as their partner for digital transformation.
“We are also working hard to cultivate the broader digital talent ecosystem. Through initiatives like our ICT academies, competitions, and the Seeds for the Future Program 2.0, we provide case studies for schools, give students hands-on digitalization experience, and help the industry grow the digital talent pool,” Meng added.
Huawei increased its investment in R&D and expanded its R&D staff last year as part of the vendor’s efforts to stabilize its business amid the sanctions imposed by the U.S. government
Huawei’s R&D investment increased 13.2% year-on-year to CNY161.5 billion (currently $23.4 billion) in 2022, representing 25.1% of total revenue. In 2021, R&D investment in 2021 had accounted for 22.4% of total revenues.
In 2022, Huawei reported a net profit of CNY35.6 billion, a decline of 68.7% year-on-year. Huawei noted that the figure for 2021 included one-off gains from the sale of its Honor sub-brand. The Chinese vendor also reported annual revenues of CNY642.3 billion, flat year-on-year.
