Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. is headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China with multinational networking and telecommunications equipment. Today, Huawei has become the most significant telecommunications equipment manufacturer in the world. Founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, who was an ex-military officer, Huawei now employs over 170,000 employees, with about 76,000 engaged in R&D spread around the world. Huawei products are sold in over 140 countries. So how did Huawei achieve this Herculean feat considering the market domination of Apple and Google?

To understand the company’s success, one needs to delve into its past. Huawei started out producing private branch exchange switches. The founder, Ren Zhengfei was a former engineer with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, so he comes from a strict, military background. Since its humble beginnings, Huawei has expanded its business products to include building telecommunications networks, equipment, operational and consulting services both nationally and internationally. Their best-known products are their manufacturing communications devices mainly consisting of smartphones and tablets. This feat was achieved by investing $6.4 billion on R&D in 2014, and $5 billion in 2013. In that period, Huawei registered record profits exceeding $5.5 billion.

In the 1980s, the Chinese government attempted to modernise the underdeveloped telecommunications infrastructure that plagued the country. At the time, Huawei has started producing telephone exchange switches, which were a core component of the telecommunications network. The ingenious Ren sought to bypass foreign joint ventures, and reverse engineer their most advanced technologies with local researchers. Ren attempted and succeeded in building a domestic Chinese telecommunication company capable of competing with, and ultimately replacing, foreign competitors. This was at a time when all China’s telecommunications technology was imported from abroad. There were unsubstantiated reports that the company received $8.5 million in state aid by way of a secret loan from a state-owned bank. Yet this rumour has always been denied. Nevertheless, the achievements cannot be faulted.

Today, Huawei smartphones and tablets represent quality, style and innovation, not to mention the competitive prices way lower than other premium smartphone manufacturers. Today, owning the latest Huawei phone has become a status symbol in China, preferable to the latest Apple or Google premium products. Huawei is set to change the way we use smartphones and tablets with their own irrefutable quality, design and features. There are smartphone models to suit every taste and budget, and they come with beautifully designed models, outstanding features, good memory size, screen resolution and facilities. You really can’t go wrong with a Huawei device.