WASHINGTON: As other communications technology vendors struggle to halt their sales declines, Chinese behemoth Huawei is thinking only of the next financial landmark and is targeting annual revenues of more than US$150 billion within the next five years, the company’s CEO tells Light Reading in an exclusive interview. Huawei is set to announce audited revenues of 520 billion yuan renminbi (US$75 billion) for the full year 2016 when it releases its audited financials (usually in April). (See Huawei’s Network Sales Up Around 32% in 2016.) But according to the vendor’s Deputy Chairman and current CEO Eric Xu, there’s still plenty of dramatic growth (potentially 30% per year) to be had from the company’s enterprise and consumer (smartphone) business units, in addition to some ongoing single-digit growth from the carrier networks unit, all of which is set to take the company’s annual sales beyond $150 billion, possibly within the next five years.
Xu also talked during the interview, held during the recent Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, about Huawei’s plans and prospects in IoT (not much in the way of profits to be had any time soon, it seems), how the company went through something of a tough patch in 2011 through 2014 and how it’s aiming to help network operators develop video services offerings by acting as a video content aggregator (but without any plans to profit from doing so). To find out what Xu had to say about these topics and more, read CEO Interview: Huawei’s Eric Xu.
