Huawei Applied sciences Chief Monetary Officer Meng Wanzhou reacts as she leaves her dwelling to attend a courtroom listening to in Vancouver, Canada, August 10, 2021.
Jennifer Gauthier | Reuters
SHANGHAI — Huawei’s Chief Monetary Officer Meng Wanzhou mentioned on Wednesday that adopting 5G expertise in enterprise has been harder than she anticipated.
One of many expectations for 5G connectivity is that the expertise won’t solely allow sooner cell phone connections for particular person shoppers, but additionally allow self-driving autos and manufacturing unit automation.
Meng mentioned the challenges of bringing 5G to enterprise have been underestimated and it’s utterly totally different from earlier 2G, 3G or 4G generations. She mentioned solely when 5G turns into a part of the ecosystem will it’s potential to realize operations at scale.
Meng spoke at a keynote session on the Shanghai Cellular World Congress on Wednesday, the place she spoke broadly about the advantages of 5G for consumption and the economic system.
The Chinese language smartphone maker has been attempting to promote cloud companies to particular sectors resembling mining and finance.
The corporate first launched figures for its cloud computing enterprise in 2022, saying income for the unit was 45.3 billion Chinese language yuan ($6.25 billion) final yr.
“In case you examine MWC Shanghai and MWC Barcelona [earlier this year]an attention-grabbing side is that you simply discover that most of the case research are common and international,” says Winston Ma, writer of “The Digital Conflict: How China’s Tech Energy Shapes the Way forward for AI, Blockchain and Our on-line world.”
Talking on the sidelines of Shanghai MWC, he mentioned the necessity for Chinese language corporations to compete might drive better adoption of 5G.
“So I feel the Chinese language corporations are in all probability extra prepared, extra keen to check new 5G functions,” mentioned Ma, who can be an adjunct professor of regulation at New York College.
“However in fact there can be obstacles for any business, particularly for the standard industries. They’ve their present ecosystem.”
Banned on Huawei 5G
Final yr noticed Huawei’s largest annual revenue decline as US sanctions hit its enterprise and China’s Covid-19 controls weighed on the native economic system.
In Could 2019, the Trump administration positioned Huawei on a blacklist that banned US corporations from promoting expertise to the Chinese language firm over nationwide safety issues. Huawei has denied posing such a menace.
The US, UK and Australia have additionally banned Huawei from working of their 5G networks. Earlier this month, a senior EU official known as on extra members of the bloc to take action. Germany is among the nations that haven’t but restricted Huawei from its native 5G community.
Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, returned to China in 2021 – after being detained in Canada for practically three years on the request of the US. Along with being CFO of Huawei, she additionally serves as deputy chairman of Huawei’s board of administrators and rotating chairman.
– CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal and Ryan Browne contributed to this report.
Correction: This story has been up to date to indicate that Huawei noticed its largest annual revenue drop final yr.
