China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on June 2 issued a top-100 list of Chinese electronics and information technology companies for the year 2010, with Huawei, a telecom solutions provider, continuing to stay in first place. Huawei was followed by Legend Holding Ltd, whose subsidiaries include the well-known Lenovo and Digital China, and the Haier Group, a leading Chinese producer of white goods. The top three corporations all had their main business revenue surpassing 100 billion yuan (US$15.38 billion) in 2010.

According to Ding Wenwu (丁文武), deputy chief in the ministry’s electronics and information department the top ten companies were: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Legend Holdings Limited, Haier Group, Great Wall Technology Co., Ltd., ZTE Corporation Co., Ltd., Hisense Group Co., Ltd., Sichuan Changhong Electronics Group Co., Ltd., TCL Group Co., Ltd., Beijing University Founder Group Co., Ltd., BYD Company Limited.

Ding Wenwu said that the combined main business revenues of the 100 companies totaled 1.5354 trillion yuan in the past year, up more than 20 percent from the previous year. Their revenues accounted for 24 percent of the total in the sector. Companies with their main business revenues exceeding 10 billion yuan reached 27 last year, five more than 2009. The list also showed that a company had to have at least 2 billion yuan of main business revenue last year to make it onto the list, up 100 million yuan compared to the year of 2009.

The combined profits of the 100 companies last year also surged by more than 50 percent to reach 95.2 billion yuan, according to the ministry’s data. The top-100 companies produced 26.82 million computers, 73.67 million colored TV sets, and 174.52 million cell phones last year, accounting for 10.9 percent, 62.3 percent, and 17.5 percent of the respective total output. The 32.2 billion output of integrated circuits was 49.3% of the total, while the output of 18.29 million PBX lines 58.4%.

Source: Xinhua (via translation)

The long march of the invisible Mr Ren [The Economist, June 2, 2011] (emphasis is mine)
China’s technology star needs to shine more openly

Within the next ten years Huawei wants to become not only a technology leader but also a $100 billion company playing in the same league as Western IT giants such as Cisco, HP and IBM.

…

The firm pioneered the SingleRAN, a base station for mobile networks programmable for different wireless standards. It was also the first to make easy-to-use dongles that plug into laptops to connect to the internet wirelessly.

…

Huawei can feel a bit like a corporate version of the Chinese Communist Party. Mr Ren is a charismatic leader. He was born in 1944, his parents were teachers and he studied civil engineering before joining the PLA. In 1987, after the PLA disbanded its engineers corps, Mr Ren started Huawei with 21,000 yuan (then $4,400) of his own money. He first imported telephone switches from Hong Kong, then decided to build his own products and spend on average 10% of revenues on R&D.

…

In Europe Huawei has now clearly reached the cities. In May the firm won its first order for mobile network equipment in Britain from Everything Everywhere, a joint venture of Orange and T-Mobile. Richard Windsor of Nomura, an investment bank, predicts the market for wireless networks will become essentially a game of two players: a technology leader, Ericsson, and a cost leader, Huawei. “Operators need a cost leader to keep Ericsson honest,” says Mr Windsor.

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Who really controls Huawei is still an unanswered question. The firm says that Mr Ren holds only 1.42% of the stock and that the rest is in the hands of the employees who own Huawei’s holding company. These pool their interests in a shareholders’ union which is run by an elected committee. But the firm does not disclose much about this body, or who sits on it. Some say that the power rests with members of Mr Ren’s family. Others argue that the place is actually run by a “shadow structure” of the Communist Party.

An even bigger mystery is Mr Ren himself, who must be the most reclusive boss in the technology industry. He has never given a press interview—proof, some say, of his great self-discipline.

Huawei’s software defined Base Transceiver Station (BTS) across GSM, UMTS, CDMA, WiMAX and LTE technologies which is allowing a phased introduction of advanced technologies via software migration:

By replacing the legacy Radio Access Network (RAN) technology with Huawei’s SingleRAN solution (based on UNI-BTS) significantly reduces the space and the cost of BTS and introduces very effective upgrade capality for newer and higher speed mobile broadband technologies:

More information is in the SingleRAN@Broad making tremendous traffic profitable [March 16, 2010] article. You can also watch this video for more details:

Huawei’s Five-Year Financial Highlights

Huawei Corporate Fact Sheet [Feb 8, 2011]

Huawei is a leading global provider of commercial telecom networks and it is currently serving 45 of the world’s top 50 telecom operators. Through continuous customer-centric innovation, Huawei responds quickly to customers’ needs with a comprehensive, customized set of offerings. Huawei’s products and solutions are deployed in over 140 countries and are supporting the communication needs of one-third of the world’s population. As of December 2010, Huawei employed over 110,000 employees, 51,000 of whom are based outside of China. Huawei’s international operations have an average localization rate of 69 percent.

Huawei is privately held and is 100% owned by its employees. As a progressive organization, Huawei undertakes management transformation benchmarked against industry best practices. Since 1997, IBM, Hay Group, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and Accenture have served as Huawei’s consultants in such areas as corporate management, human resources management, employee shareholding plans, financial management and quality control. In 2010, Huawei recorded unaudited revenues of USD 28 billion, a year-on-year increase of 24%. Huawei’s financial results are audited on an annual basis by international accounting firm KPMG. The company’s audited financial results for 2010 will be published in the second quarter.

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Strong Market Position

Industry analysts continue to acknowledge Huawei’s market leadership across multiple domains [emphasis is mine]:

• No.1 in mobile broadband with 55% market share(ABI Research, 2010)
• No.1 in IPTV VOD in (Infonetics 2010 Q3 )
• No.1 in Telco IPTV Market (infonetics 2010 Q3)
• No.1 in the Mobile Softswitch market with 40.6% market share(Frost&Sullivan, 2010)
• No.1 in IMS&NGN market by revenue with 27% market share (Gartner, 2010)
• No.1 in NGN shipments with 26.5% market share (Frost&Sullivan, 2010)
• No.1 in shipments for Packet Core with 27.8% revenue share.(Dell’Oro, 2010Q1)
• No.1 in SDM and ngHLR Market (Frost&Sullivan, 2010)
• No.1 in PCRF market by contract number (Frost&Sullivan, 2010)
• Positioned in No.1 in DSL with 34% market share in 10Q3 (Infonetics, 2010 Q3)
• No.1 in GPON with 41% market share in 10Q3 (Infonetics,2010 Q3)
• No.1 in Global Optical Networks with 24% market share in 2009Q4~2010Q3 (Ovum-RHK, 2010 Q3)
• No.1 in Global IP Microwave Radio with 22% market share in 10Q2 (Skylight, 2010 Q2)
• Ranked No.2 in Global SP Ethernet Switch Market Share by Revenue in 2010Q3 (Infonetics, 2010 Q3)
• No.2 in total RAN share marketwith 20.6% market share (Dell O’ro,2010 Q3)
• Ranked No.3 in Global Service Provider Router with 15.1% market share by revenue (OVUM, 2010 Q3)
• Positioned in Leaders Quadrants in Gartner’s Softswitch Architecture Magic Quadrant and performs best (Gartner, 2010)

Recognition
… Most Innovative Companies” globally by Fast Company, – Ranked #5, behind Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google in Feb 2010 …

#5 Huawei  [Feb 16, 2010] (emphasis is mine)

Shenzhen-based Huawei Technologies shot past Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens in 2009 to become the world’s No. 2 telecom-equipment provider [not far behind the leader, Ericsson, with $30 billion in sales], powered by quality and product upgrades on top of its long-standing low prices. In the past year, it has won a slew of lucrative, prestigious contracts — Huawei recently beat out rivals Ericsson and Nokia Siemens for a deal to build Norway’s pioneering 4G cell-phone network, one of the world’s first — and showed continued strength in the burgeoning Indian and Chinese markets. The sum of these deals was good enough to double Huawei’s global market share to 20% and boost 2009 sales 17.5% to $21.5 billion.

18 Huawei: For building the future of telecoms [March 2, 2011] (emphasis is mine)

Forget 3G and 4G: China’s Huawei Technologies leads the market in LTE (long-term evolution), the newest mobile-network standard, and it’s working on what it calls “100G” technology to wirelessly transmit massive amounts of data at ultra-high speeds. Such ambition and the commitment of nearly half its staff to R&D have helped Huawei become the world’s second-largest telecom-equipment supplier. That most people still haven’t heard of it is due largely to its geographic focus; more than 75% of revenue comes from India, China, and Latin America. But it wants to raise its brand recognition–it’s introducing an affordable smartphone that it hopes will “democratize” that technology–and make Huawei a household name.

Huawei’s Business Profile:

Radio Access Network (RAN)	LTE/HSPA/WCDMA/EDGE/GPRS/GSM, CDMA2000 1X EVDO/ CDMA2000 1X, TD-SCDMA, WiMAX Huawei’s SingleRAN Solution: SingleRAN represents the future of mobile networks, and the core of SingleRAN is rooted in the idea of ‘One Network, Three Features (GSM/UMTS/LTE)’. … Huawei has been a pioneer in developing SingleRAN solutions ever since it launched the industry’s first commercial SingleRAN solution. To date, Huawei has deployed over 80 SingleRAN networks for operators around the world. See more: Why SingleRAN is Becoming Ubiquitous [March 21, 2011]
Core Network	IMS, Mobile Softswitch, NGN, PS, HLR/HSS, Signaling
[Transport] Network	FTTX, xDSL, WiFi, MSTP, WDM/OTN, PTN, Microwave Radio, Routers [NE, AR], LAN Switch
Software	BSS, Digital Home, SDP, Mobile Office, RCS (rich communication suites), IPCC
Device	Handset, Mobile Broadband (data card, USB dongle, embedded module etc.), convergence terminal, Video Conferencing Terminal
Services	Managed Services, Network Technology Services, Network Rollout, Network Integration, Customer Support, Learning Services

For comparison: The World’s Most Innovative Companies 2011 by Fast Company [March 2, 2011]

Rank	Name	Last year
1	Apple: for dominating the business landscape, in 101 ways	3
2	Twitter: for five years of explosive growth that have redefined communication	50
3	Facebook: for 600 million users, despite Hollywood	1
4	Nissan (Japan): for creating the Leaf, the first mass-market all-electric car	–
5	Groupon: for reinvigorating retail – and turning down $6 billion	–
6	Google: for instantly upgrading the search experience	4
7	Dawning Information Industry (China):) for building the world’s fastest supercomputer	–
8	Netflix: for streaming itself into a $9 billion powerhouse (and crushing Blockbuster)	12
9	Zynga: for being the $500 million alpha dog of social gaming
10	Epocrates: for giving doctors and nurses instant drug reference	–
11	Trader Joe’s: for vaulting past whole foods to become America’s favorite organic grocer	–
12	ARM (UK): for efficiently powering the iPad, iPhone, Kindle, and nearly every other mobile device	–
13	Burberry (UK): for breathing new life into a luxury stronghold	–
14	Kosaka Smelting and Refining (Japan): for turning old cell phones into gold mines	–
15	Foursquare: for creating a new way to reward consumer loyalty	–
16	ESPN: for integrating new tech like a startup	–
17	Turner Sports: for growing like a new tech startup	–
18	Huawei (China): for building the future of telecoms	5
19	Intel: for its big bet on domestic manufacturing	14
20	SynCardia: for giving mobility to artificial-heart recepients	–
21	DonorsChoose.org: for connecting kids who need supplies to donors who want help	–
22	eBay: for transforming the mobile marketplace	–
23	Nike: for its mix of sports, style, and yes, plastic bottles	13
24	LinkedIn: for turning 90 million members into the world’s most useful career database	–
25	Wieden + Kennedy: for dominating the airwaves and the Internet with its Old Spice campaign	–
26	Yandex (Russia): for its prowess in search	–
27	Amazon: for writing new plot twists for e-readers and beyond	2
28	Opening Ceremony: for building a global brand that still feels exclusive	–
29	IBM: for its computer [Watson] that outsmarts quiz-show kings	18
30	Amyris: for using its biofuel expertise to save malaria victims	–
31	Double Negative (UK): for blowing our minds with Oscar-worthy visual effects	–
32	Kaspersky Lab (Russia): for turning hackers into an army of virus fighters	–
33	PepsiCo: for its ambitious nutrition R&D	–
34	Univision: for pleasing its Lation base – and threatening the TV establishment	–
35	Snøhetta (Norway): for design that’s both social and beautiful	–
36	Marks & Spencer (UK): for aggressively pursuing a green supply chain	–
37	Microsoft: for turning the human body into a game controller	48
38	Solarcity: for being the nation’s leading installer of rooftop solar panels	–
39	Shaadi.com (India): for proving that marriage, Indian-style, works online as well as off	–
40	Voxiva: for encouraging good health via mobile apps	–
41	Cisco: for big thinking on big new markets	17
42	Enerkem (Canada): for finding the hidden power of trash	–
43	Samsung (South Korea): for transforming itself into a steady source of cutting-edge electronics	36
44	Pandora: for taking personalized music on the road	–
45	GE: for its green dreams for trains, planes, and automation	19
46	Changchun Dacheng Industrial Group (China): for turning corn husks into chemical building blocks	–
47	Azul (Brazil): for converting bus riders into frequent fliers	–
48	Stamen Design: for finding both art and science (and on Twitter)	–
49	FX Networks: for a great run of high-quality, low-cost laffers	–
50	Madécasse: for building a bean-to-bar chocalate company in one of the poorest countries in the world (Madagascar)	–