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uawei entered Africa in 1998 and operates in 50 countries across the continent, digitalising industries like transportation and education and expanding their lucrative smartphone businesses into the numerous African markets. Fittingly, Wu describes Huawei’s plan as “accelerating the ICT transformation in Africa” and “providing African people with more accesses to the digital world”. In June 2016, Huawei and Vodacom South Africa successfully ran Africa’s first three component carrier test
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“The company is also involved in sponsoring and working with AfricaCom and the African Internet Governance Forum, developing new ways to bring the public and private sector together to bridge the African digital divide and tested Africa’s first 1Gbps network by aggregating long-term evolution (LTE), a standard for high-speed wireless communication for mobile phones and data terminals, in both licensed and unlicensed bands with using its LampSite solution. The peak speed hit over 1Gbps, a milestone in the development of a 4.5G network.
Another live trial successfully demonstrated the co-existence of LTE in unlicensed band in open public areas like Vodacom World’s conference venues and a shopping mall like Sandton City, where existing Wi-Fi services are already being widely used and the spectrum is fairly shared between the different technologies.
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“We anticipate there will be over 100 billion connections between people to people, machine to machine by 2025 Huawei SA CEO, Steven Wu
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The deployed network has a natural evolution path and can be software upgraded to a fully LBT (Listen Before Talk) compliant solution, known as LAA (License Assisted Access). Standard LAA within the 3GPP standards process will ensure fair share use among the multiple users and technologies, such as Wi-Fi, that access the unlicensed bands. For this public trial demonstrating LTE in unlicensed co-existence, Huawei worked with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. to use a test mobile device based on the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 820 processor with X12 LTE for the live network trial. Commercial mobile devices are expected to be released by manufacturers towards the second half of the year.
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Planting the seed
Huawei also run a corporate social responsibility programme called Seeds for the Future, which works with local governments, higher education institutes and similar organisations to offer work experience and study opportunities to students working in the ICT fields. The programme aims to arrange for students to study cutting-edge technologies such as 5G, LTE, and cloud computing, and offer them opportunities for handson practice in Huawei’s most advanced labs.
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Seeds for the Future is an international initiative that seeks students from every country, but with Huawei’s extensive operations in both South Africa and across the continent as a whole the door is open for African students who wish to study with an industry-leading company. At present, Seeds for the Future has been active in, among others, Kenya, Namibia, Botswana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Ghana, with efforts to move into South Africa underway. Further training, support and infrastructure initiatives are
seeing Huawei partnering with the South African government, among other national institutions. Huawei’s Joint Innovation and Experience Centre has signed a corporation contract with the South African Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services which will ensure that African ICT professionals are familiar with Huawei products and methodology while also ensuring that the infrastructure exists to innovate and generate further business for Huawei down the line. As one might expect, the company is also involved
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in sponsoring and working with AfricaCom and the African Internet Governance Forum, developing new ways to bring the public and private sector together to bridge the African digital divide. Business-wise, Huawei has gained an edge in the sub-Saharan markets with competitive pricing and tailored products, with Wu stating that smartphones like the P9 and its Plus and lite variants have exceeded “even our bullish expectations” in South Africa. Much of this is down to a local focus, with the aim to produce the features and affordable price points suited to their target markets. Huawei’s business is also reliant on a network of suppliers, partner companies and other entities which keep their vast logistics chains active. The company’s stakeholders are a vital part of their business, and relationships with them are “building blocks that Huawei treasures dearly”. According to Wu, “It is safe to say the relations are steady and good. Huawei has various projects and programs in place that provide platforms for us to engage with our stakeholders and share our brand identity, culture, vision and mission, and also understand that of our partners.” Supplier and enterprise development programmes are a key part of the constant process
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“Smartphones like the P9 and its Plus and lite variants are exceeding even our bullish expectations in South Africa
of upgrading the corporation’s supply chain, and Huawei aims to ensure that “regular and close contact” is kept with suppliers, strategic partners, stakeholders and operators in all the areas their business covers. This strategy seems to be paying off – Huawei technology forms a vital part of the operational capacity of a long list of telecoms companies serving countries all over Africa, from Algeria and Egypt in the north to Cameroon, the CAR, Benin, Nigeria, Namibia, Botswana and many others. Huawei currently sells products in over 50 African countries, with others including Tanzania soon to join that number.
Not simply selling
Huawei’s business plan in Africa is similar to the tactics adopted by many other successful multinational and local companies in the rapidly growing ICT sector – not simply trying to sell to developing African nations, but instead establishing longer-term connections to drive progress. The vast and partly un-tapped potential of the African markets, particularly the Sub-Saharan and western regions where the pace of technological development is rapidly snowballing, force multi-national entities to stand out and tailor their services accordingly. This environment also provides an
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innovation at an affordable price point for all consumers.” Satisfied customers with working phones and internet will benefit every factor of Huawei’s business, and that of other Chinese industries across Africa.
Connecting everything
opportunity to gain ground where bigger competitors fail. Huawei has successfully competed with giants like Blackberry and Nokia for market share, hitting 50% of the Kenyan smartphone market share in 2013. Meanwhile, Huawei faces a challenge unique to Chinese companies and manufacturers in Africa, with the stereotype of poor-quality, cheaply-made goods. Recently this feeling has begun to reverse - the widelypublicised story of a South African man who was saved from a robbery when his Huawei P9 lite smartphone stopped a 9mm bullet fired by a mugger was a watershed moment. To counter this prejudice, Wu emphasises that Huawei is focused on “creating premium devices that exhibit our dedication to flawless design and technological
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“The program aims to arrange for students to study cutting-edge technologies such as 5G, LTE, and cloud computing, and offer them opportunities for hands-on practice in Huawei’s most advanced labs
Wu offers a fascinating vision of the future: “We anticipate there will be over 100 billion connections between people to people, machine to machine by 2025. We envision the future will be an intelligent world. In an intelligent world, devices will play the role of the ‘feelers’ in an all-sensing environment. Networks will connect everything, and the cloud will be the source of intelligence behind all things. These three elements form a synergetic architecture of devices, information pipes, and the cloud.” An almost science-fiction vision, perhaps. When Huawei moved into the African markets in 1998 it might have been dismissed as impossible. With the Internet of Things out of the think-tank and into the home, however, Huawei’s preparations to build the technological infrastructure to help African nations follow suit seems like sound business sense. Cloud-based computing remains important to Huawei’s strategy. Wu describes their “strategic focus” as “devices, information pipes and the cloud”. This digital frontier is only expanding, and Huawei aims to be at the forefront.
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