Chapter 16 Chapter 3 Expansion of the International Map

In the early spring of 1996, a group of hungry "coyotes" set off from Bantian Base, Shenzhen, Huawei's headquarters, and began to migrate and look for food abroad.Just a few years later, because of the existence of this group of "coyotes", some multinational giants had trouble sleeping and eating. On December 26, 1995, before Huawei's expedition, Ren Zhengfei made a ten-thousand-word report entitled "The Current Situation and Our Tasks" at Huawei's internal marketing work meeting. His summary of the situation at that time was: "Our The team is too young, and it is growing in the period of our smooth development, the anti-risk awareness and the ability to control the crisis are weak, and cannot withstand the blow... Do not take advantage of the short-term lead, seize some markets as soon as possible, increase investment to consolidate and If we prolong our advance, that little lead will be fleeting. If we don’t work hard, we will be sad. We should take action when we should take action... We are not very dangerous now, if three to five years later If we can’t build an international team in China, once the Chinese market is saturated, we will sit still!”

Based on this sense of crisis, Ren Zhengfei made a judgment that internationalization is the only way for Huawei to survive the "winter", and wrote it into the "Huawei Basic Law" to make Huawei an international company. In March 1996, Huawei officially embarked on the arduous and long journey of opening up the international market.The first stop for Huawei to go overseas is Hong Kong, which is about to return to the motherland.Because many famous telecom operators and telecom equipment suppliers gather here, Hong Kong is one of the regions with the highest concentration of telecom companies in the world. In 1996, Huawei established a cooperative relationship with Li Ka-shing's Hutchison Telecommunications Company, marking the beginning of Huawei's program-controlled switches entering the international market.

Because Hong Kong will return to the motherland on July 1, 1997, Li Ka-shing has set his sights on the mainland for development and is seeking cooperation with mainland enterprises, but he still has concerns about the quality of products and services in the mainland.Hong Kong customers were used to Siemens products at that time—the international and domestic markets were very different. If Li Ka-shing’s company could not get through, it would be difficult to obtain the right to operate the telecommunications business in the Hong Kong market.The performance coordination of various program-controlled switches in the network varies greatly, which undoubtedly increases the difficulty for Huawei.

As soon as he went out, Ren Zhengfei discovered the shortcomings of his products.At the beginning, the connection of the program-controlled switchboard was a little unstable. If the product could not be successfully compatible with Hutchison Telecom, then it would be impossible to obtain a telecom business license.At that time, everyone was under a lot of pressure. In order to solve the problem as soon as possible, everyone gave up holidays and rest time, ate and slept in the laboratory, and took turns to install and debug.After everyone's joint efforts, the problem was finally solved, the product passed the inspection and acceptance, got the Hong Kong Telecom business operation pass, and successfully took the first step of "sailing to sea".

Since 1998, Huawei has extended its tentacles to the world's core markets in Europe and the United States.Taking Russia as an example, in April 1997, Huawei established a local joint venture company, Beto-Huawei, with Russia's Beto Concern and Russia Telecom, to develop the market with a localized model. Huawei's entry into Europe and the United States also started from the edge. Li Jie, who went to Moscow to open up the market in 1998, said: "As soon as we arrived in Moscow, we ran every region of Russia non-stop. We used the time when our competitors went skiing and reunited with their families to gain positions. From 1998 to We achieved nothing in 1999, but we persevered and told everyone that Huawei is still there." Persistence has finally brought Huawei rewards.Although the first contract was only US$38, by 2001, Huawei had signed a GSM equipment supply contract worth tens of millions of US dollars with the Russian National Telecommunications Department. At the end of 2002, Huawei won an order for a 3,797-kilometer ultra-long-distance national optical transmission trunk line.By 2003, Huawei's sales in the CIS countries exceeded US$300 million, ranking among the top international large-scale equipment suppliers in the CIS market.

2004 was a bumper year for Hua.In February of this year, the organizer of the Olympic Games asked Huawei to provide a complete set of GSM equipment systems for the upcoming Athens Olympic Games, and said that they would pay the deposit immediately. On March 25 of the same year, Huawei established its European regional headquarters in the UK. The British authoritative media "The Times" believed that: "This move is an important symbol of Chinese companies going global." In June, Huawei's global market share in optical networks crossed the pole It seems that Lucent and Nortel have been left aside, and they are approaching Alcatel.

Immediately afterwards, in the bidding for the $10 million long-term broadband equipment contract of the Swedish Railways and the $160 million network upgrade business bidding of the United Arab Emirates telecommunications operator Etisalat, Huawei beat international rivals and won the bid.So far, as a private enterprise in China, Huawei has basically achieved global R&D, production and sales. In 2004, Huawei achieved sales revenue of US$5.581 billion, of which foreign sales were US$2.283 billion, accounting for 41% of total sales. From 2000 to 2004, Huawei's foreign sales revenue increased by nearly 18 times. After 2005, Huawei's foreign sales continued to grow, accounting for more than 65% of total sales.

At the 2005 strategic seminar, Ren Zhengfei repeatedly emphasized: "Internationalization is the strategic focus of Huawei in 2005." In the process of internationalization of Chinese companies, Huawei's internationalization is generally attributed to the "Huawei model"—— Characterized by global research and development - establish a global research and development network; at the same time build its own market network and service network to achieve globalization.After opening markets in Eastern Europe and Southern Europe, Huawei began to expand into Western Europe and North America, and set up the center of the European Division in Paris.

Deng Tao, vice president of Huawei, once led his troops from Africa to the European market. He told reporters with deep emotion: "It was very difficult at the beginning. At the beginning, Huawei had only two people in Europe, and they couldn't even enter the door of operators. Because Europeans think that China can only produce cheap shoes, and it is unheard of that Chinese can produce high-tech products. For example, when Huawei participated in the Cannes Telecom Exhibition a few years ago, the title of the French TV report was "China Has 3G Technology?", yes Chinese companies are full of suspicion and disdain."

Deng Tao recalled: "At that time, after a French telecommunications company adopted equipment produced by Huawei, the mainstream French media found it incredible and asked to interview Huawei. As a result, after a French reporter went to Huawei for an on-site interview, he returned to China immediately without even going to Beijing. I rushed to write a 'shocking' article, warning European telecommunications manufacturers: You will be severely challenged by this Chinese company." Later, Deng Tao discovered that compared with foreign companies, Chinese companies not only have disadvantages, but also have very obvious advantages.For example, European companies are generally slow to respond, and it often takes a year or even a year and a half for users to make a modification suggestion.And Huawei, as long as users have needs, always work overtime and respond quickly.One can only be improved in a year, and the other can be improved in a month. The advantages are naturally reflected.Moreover, the Chinese are particularly hardworking, which is already well-known abroad, and the efficiency will of course be high.

After 10 years of hard work, Huawei's products have entered 20 developed countries in Europe and the United States, including Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Portugal, the Netherlands, the United States, and Canada, and its sales and service network covers more than 100 countries around the world. In 2010, Huawei's sales revenue reached 185.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.3%. Among them, foreign markets achieved sales revenue of 120.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 33.8%. Foreign revenue accounted for 65% of total sales.Huawei's sales revenue is only lower than that of Ericsson (its sales revenue in 2010 was about 214.5 billion yuan). Whether in disease-ravaged Africa, or in Iraq filled with gunpowder; whether in Indonesia after the tsunami, or in Japan, which was hit by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake...they have left behind the shadows of Huawei people, and they have left their footprints of struggle. The international market has opened up a vast world.