Huawei has taken Ericsson's crown as the world’s largest telecoms vendor despite hostility from some international governments.
The Chinese tech giant has faced difficulties in some markets, including the U.S. and Australia, over security concerns due to its founder’s past links to the Chinese military.
Earlier this year, this became an issue once more as Huawei sought to break into the U.S. smartphone market in a deal with AT&T. The deal was dropped in the last hour, with lawmakers allegedly telling U.S. operators they would be ineligible to have deals with the government if they have one with Huawei.
This hostile market environment does not seem to have stunted Huawei’s overall growth much. In fact, Huawei was the only major equipment maker last year to gain in market share. According to research firm IHS Markit, the company’s share increased to 28 percent in 2017 from 25 percent in the previous year.
Back in 2012, the U.S. banned all domestic carriers from buying equipment from both ZTE and Huawei. In 2013, Australia banned Huawei from supplying equipment for a $38 billion high-speed national broadband network.
These attitudes do not seemed to have altered. In January, U.S., as lawmakers in January introduced a bill that would prohibit government purchases of telecom equipment from Huawei. In February, reports said the Australian military is phasing out use of Huawei and ZTE smartphones on national-security concerns.
IHS Markit says the overall global mobile infrastructure industry’s revenue totaled $37.2 billion last year, declining 14% from $43.3 billion in 2016.
What are your thoughts on Huawei’s success? Let us know in the comments.
Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their use-cases? Attend the co-located IoT Tech Expo, Blockchain Expo, AI & Big Data Expo and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo World Series with upcoming events in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam and explore the future of enterprise technology.
