Huawei Libya office

The company was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, a former Deputy Regimental Chief in the People’s Liberation Army Initially focused on manufacturing phone switches, Huawei has expanded its business to include building telecommunications networks, providing operational and consulting services and equipment to enterprises inside and outside of China, and manufacturing communications devices for the consumer market Huawei has over 194,000 employees as of December 2019.

Huawei has deployed its products and services in more than 170 countries.[9] It overtook Ericsson in 2012 as the largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer in the world,[10] and overtook Apple in 2018 as the second-largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world, behind Samsung Electronics.[11] In 2018, Huawei reported that its annual revenue was US$108.5 billion.[12] In July 2020, Huawei surpassed Samsung and Apple to become the top smartphone brand (in number of phones shipped) in the world for the first time.