Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. (Chinese: 华为技术有限公司; pinyin: Huáwei Jíshu Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī) in Shenzhen, Guangdong, People's Republic of China is one of the world’s leading networking and telecommunications equipment suppliers.

Established in 1988 by Ren Zhengfei ^[1], Huawei Technologies is a private high-tech enterprise which specializes in research and development (R&D), production and marketing of communications equipment, and providing customized network solutions for telecom carriers in different areas. Huawei has now (2006) over 44,000 employees, of whom 48% are dedicated to R&D. In addition to the R&D centers in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Chengdu in China, Huawei has also R&D centers in India, Russia, Sweden, and the USA.

(Chinese: 华为技术有限公司; pinyin: Huáwei Jíshu Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī) officially translates in English to Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.. Huáwei itself variously translates as “achievement” or “magnificent act” or “splendid act”, although breaking down the meaning of such a given name is analogous to noting that in Hebrew “David” means “beloved one”. Such a translation is an etymological curiosity, not to be used generally. The character 华 also has strong connections to the country of China itself, as in 中华 pinyin:Zhōnghuá.

Huawei was founded by Ren Zhengfei in 1988, as a small distributor of imported PBX products. By 1989, Huawei started developing and later marketing its own PBX. After accumulating knowledge and resources on PBX business, Huawei achieved its first breakthrough into mainstream telecommunication market in 1993, by launching C&C08 digital telephone switch, which had a switching capacity of over 10K circuits. Until that time, Chinese domestic telecom companies were not able to build switches with such capacity. Huawei's switches were first deployed only in small cities and rural areas. It eventually gained market share and made its way into major city switch offices and toll service. Other Huawei products also likely have such a history for their adoption.

In 1994, Huawei established long distance transmission equipment business, launched its own HONET integrated access network and SDH product line. In 1996, Huawei captured its first overseas contract, providing fixed-line network products to Hongkong's Hutchison-Whampoa. Later, in 1997, Huawei released its GSM product and eventually expanded to offer CDMA and UMTS.

After 2001, Huawei increased its speed of expanding into oversea market. By 2004, it's overseas sales had surpassed that of the domestic market. Huawei has a joint venture (JV) with Siemens for developing TD-SCDMA products and a JV, named H-3C, with 3Com for Internet Protocol-based routers and switches; however, Huawei has agreed to sell ^[2] its 49 percent of H-3C to 3Com.

Huawei provides fixed network, mobile network, data communications, optical network, software & services and terminals --- ranging from switching, integrated access network, NGN, xDSL, optical transport, intelligent network, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, W-CDMA, CDMA2000, a full series of routers and LAN switches, videoconferencing, terminals to other key telecom technology fields. Huawei manufactures also mobile phones (e.g., Huawei supplies Vodafone with exclusive Vodafone-branded 3G mobile handsets ^[3]), 3G HSDPA cards (Huawei E620 ^[4] HSDPA Card is being offered by e.g., Vodafone in the United Kingdom and Telia in Sweden) and 3G HSDPA USB modem ^[5].

Huawei's products are deployed in over 100 countries, including Paraguay, the United States, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Singapore, Argentina, Pakistan, Chile, Ireland and the Philippines. Here is a list of some of Huawei's customers: Hola Paraguay, China Telecom, China Mobile, China Netcom, China Unicom, BT, Carphone Warehouse (UK), Tiscali (UK), Opal, BSNL (India), Cricket Communications (USA), KPN, Globe Telecom, Vodafone, Telefonica, Telfort, SingTel, StarHub, Hutchison Telecom, Ufone (Pakistan). Huawei's 3G equipments have been commercially deployed in UAE, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mauritius and the Netherlands.

In 2005, Huawei was selected by BT as a preferred supplier of communications equipment for BT’s 21CN network strategy ^[6]. In the same year, Huawei signed a Global Framework Agreement with Vodafone for mobile network infrastructure ^[7]. In 2006, Motorola signed a deal ^[8] with Huawei where Motorola distributes and installs Huawei's 3G equipment. On November 15 (2006), Huawei signed a deal ^[9] worth 30 million euros (US$38.4 million) with German operator Versatel Holding Deutschland GmbH. Huawei will build a fibre-optic communication network based on Internet protocol (IP) for Versatel, Germany's third largest fixed-line operator. On Feburary 1 (2007), Forbes reported that France Telecom has selected Huawei to supply UMTS mobile equipment for its third generation network ^[10]. Huawei replaced Alcatel/Motorola in Romania, and Nortel in Belgium.

Huawei's global contract sales for 2006 reached 11 billion USD, 65% of which comes from overseas market. 2006 global contract sales representing a year-over-year growth rate of over 34% ^[11]. Huawei has now become a leading vendor in the industry. As far as market share is concerned, Huawei is No. 2 in worldwide share of optical network hardware market ^[12]; No. 2 in worldwide share of broadband access market (DSL Port Shipments) ^[13]; No. 3 in worldwide share of the carrier Ethernet switch/router market ^[14]. Huawei has also become one of the few vendors in the world to provide end-to-end 3G solutions.

In 2003, Cisco filed a lawsuit ^[15] against Huawei claiming Huawei infringed Cisco's intellectual property to develop a line-up of routers and switches. Huawei immediately stopped selling the relevant products in the US market and then agreed to modify its command line interface, user manuals, help screens and portions of its source codes in some of its products. As a result, Cisco dropped ^[16] the lawsuit. Both sides paid their own court fees.