Huawei (officially Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.) is a Chinese multinational networking and telecommunications equipment and services company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It is the largest China-based networking and telecommunications equipment supplier and the second-largest supplier of mobile telecommunications infrastructure equipment in the world (after Ericsson).

Huawei is organized around three core business segments: Telecom Networks, building telecommunications networks; Global Services, offering global equipment, operational services, and consulting services for enterprise customers; and Devices, manufacturing electronic communications devices.

Huawei was founded by Ren Zhengfei in 1987, with an initial registered capital of RMB21,000. Established in Shenzhen, Huawei started off as a sales agent for a Hong Kong company producing Private Branch Exchange (PBX) switches. By 1990, Huawei began its own independent research and commercialization of PBX technologies targeting hotels and small enterprises. After accumulating knowledge and resources on PBX business, Huawei achieved its first breakthrough into the mainstream telecommunications market in 1992, when it launched its C&C08 digital telephone switch, which had the largest switching capacity in China at the time. By initially deploying in small cities and rural areas, the company gradually gained market share and made its way into the mainstream market.

In 1994, Huawei established a long distance transmission equipment business, and launched its own SONET integrated access network, combining broadband and narrowband services in a single platform, and SDH product line. Huawei generated sales of RMB1.5 billion in 1995, mainly derived from rural markets in China.

International expansion

In 1997, Huawei won its first overseas contract, providing fixed-line network products to Hong Kong company Hutchison Whampoa. Later that year, Huawei launched its wireless GSM-based products and eventually expanded to offer CDMA and UMTS. In 1999, the company opened a research and development (R&D) center in Bangalore, India to develop a wide range of telecom software. From 1998 to 2003, Huawei contracted with IBM for management consulting, and underwent significant transformation of its management and product development structure. After 2000, Huawei increased its speed of expansion into overseas markets, having achieved international sales of more than US$100 million by 2000 and establishing an R&D center in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2001, Huawei established four R&D centers in the United States, divested non-core subsidiary Avansys to Emerson for US$750 million and joined the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). By 2002, Huawei’s international market sales had reached US$552 million.

In 2004 Huawei continued its overseas expansion with a contract to build a third-generation network for Telfort, the Dutch mobile operator. This contract, valued at more than $US25 million, was the first such contract for the company in Europe.

In 2005, Huawei’s international contract orders exceeded its domestic sales for the first time. Huawei signed a Global Framework Agreement with Vodafone. This agreement marked the first time a telecommunications equipment supplier from China had received Approved Supplier status from Vodafone Global Supply Chain. The agreement established the terms and conditions for the supply of Huawei's solutions to any one of the Vodafone operating companies worldwide. Huawei also signed a contract with British Telecom (BT) for the deployment of its multi-service access network (MSAN) and Transmission equipment for BT's 21Century Network (21CN), providing BT and the UK telecommunications industry with infrastructure necessary to support future growth.

In May 2008, Huawei and Optus developed a mobile innovation centre in Sydney, Australia, providing facilities for engineers to develop new wireless and mobile broadband concepts into "ready for market" products. In 2008, the company embarked on its first large scale commercial deployment of UMTS/ HSPA in North America providing TELUS's new next generation wireless network and Bell Canada with high-speed mobile access.

Huawei delivered one of the world’s first LTE/EPC commercial networks for TeliaSonera in Oslo, Norway in 2009. The company launched the world's first end-to-end 100G solution from routers to transmission system that same year, to help meet the rapid growth of network traffic and enhance router efficiency and reliability.

In July 2010, Huawei was included in the Global Fortune 500 2010 list published by the U.S. magazine Fortune for the first time, on the strength of annual sales of US$21.8 billion and net profit of US$2.67 billion. In late 2010 it was reported that Huawei is planning to invest around US$500 million (Rs 2,200 crore) to set up a telecom equipment manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu, India and $US100 million to expand its R&D center in Bangalore.

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