Huawei Deputy Chairman Ken Hu

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. has reported a 32.7 percent increase in net profit for 2014. Net profit rose from 21 billion yuan ($3.38 billion) in 2013 to 27.9 billion yuan ($4.5 billion) in 2014. According to its annual report released March 31, the company achieved strong financial performance in 2014 across all business areas. The report cautions that since Huawei generates more than 60 percent of its revenue abroad, foreign exchange rates have had a significant impact on earnings.

“Our strong revenue growth in 2014 can be attributed to a continuous focus on our pipe strategy, while profit increase stems from streamlined management and improvements in overall efficiency,” said Ken Hu, Deputy Chairman of the Board and Rotating CEO. “With heavy investment in innovations in areas such as cloud computing, big data, 5G, SDN and NFV, we believe we are well positioned to capture the tremendous business opportunities in this digital transformation era.”

Global revenue increased by 20.6 percent from 2013 to 288.2 billion yuan. The Shenzhen-based company has also been increasing its investment in research and development (R&D) to $40.8 billion yuan ($6.6 billion), which is equivalent to 14.2 percent of the 2014 revenue. Over the past decade, Huawei has invested more than 190 billion yuan ($30.7 billion) into R&D.

Hu remarked that in the remainder of 2015 ICT technologies such as broadband, cloud computing, Big Data and the Internet of Things will drive transformation across a range of industries.

“Huawei strives to become a strategic partner for carriers in their future transformation, a leader in providing enterprise ICT infrastructure, and a top smart device brand preferred and trusted by consumers,” he said.

Huawei has also had a good start to 2015 when it revealed an impressive selection of wearable devices at Mobile World Congress 2015. The company revealed an Android Wear smartwatch called the Huawei Watch. The smartwatch features a sapphire crystal face and stainless steel casing. It will be available in gold, silver and black and rumors have the price set at $1,000. At the same time, Huawei also revealed the second iteration of its wearable tracker, TalkBand B2, as well as TalkBand N1, a magnetic necklace design that includes a Bluetooth headset, wearable tracker and MP3 player.

photo credit: Huawei Logo via photopin (license)