Text/Yang Jianyong
In 2021, Huawei's revenue is expected to be about 634 billion yuan. This is the data revealed by Guo Ping, Huawei's rotating chairman. He also pointed out: "Withstood the severe test, the overall business situation is in line with expectations." However, compared with 891.4 billion yuan in 2020, this revenue scale decreased by 257.4 billion yuan in 2021, down 29% year-on-year. In the author's opinion, due to the limitation of chips, the smartphone has shrunk sharply, which in turn has dragged down the overall revenue.
Of course, for Huawei, with hundreds of billions of dollars invested in research and development every year, making it a global technology giant, it is a technology strong enterprise that we are proud of. According to statistics, the top five manufacturers in global R&D investment are Alphabet (Google's parent company), Huawei, Microsoft, Samsung, and Apple. In terms of R&D investment, Huawei ranks second in the world after Google, and presses technology giants such as Samsung apple. It should also be pointed out that for a long time, Huawei has not pursued high profit margins, but has focused on technological innovation, making it a global voice in technologies such as 5G, Internet of Things, cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
Despite the difficult environment in 2021, it still maintains a high-intensity investment in research and development, exceeding 120 billion yuan. It can be seen that in the face of the harsh environment, Huawei's tenacious will not only survive, but also survive with quality. It should be pointed out that in the highlight moment of Huawei's mobile phone, various comparisons and various topics between Huawei and Apple are continuous, especially smartphone shipments once led Apple. When the development of Huawei's mobile phones was blocked, Apple was the biggest beneficiary, and the iPhone once again became the world's best-selling high-end smartphone, bringing a steady stream of profits to Apple.
In fiscal year 2021 as of September 2021, Apple's revenue from iPhones was $191.973 billion, up 39% year-on-year and $54.2 billion from the previous fiscal year. Benefiting from strong demand for iPhones, full-year revenue reached US$365.8 billion (about 2.3 trillion yuan), an increase of 33% year-on-year; net profit of US$94.7 billion, up 65% year-on-year (more than 600 billion yuan). This net profit scale is comparable to Huawei's annual revenue, and the revenue scale is equivalent to 3.6 Huawei.
In the global high-end mobile phone market, the lack of Huawei, a heavyweight competitor, Apple's days are quite moist, and the iPhone still maintains a strong growth trend under the situation of declining global mobile phone shipments. According to IDC data, in the third quarter of 2021, global smartphone shipments fell by 6.7% year-on-year, with shipments of 330 million units. Among them, Apple shipments reached 50.4 million units, a year-on-year increase of 20.8%, with a market share of 15.2%, ranking second in the world. In addition, without Huawei, a strong competitor, the iPhone shows rapid growth in the domestic market. Domestic shipments in the third quarter of 2021 surged 49.7% year-on-year. In fiscal 2021, Apple's revenue from greater China was $68.366 billion, up 70% year-on-year, making it Apple's most beautiful growth region in the world.
Not only the iPhone, but also Apple leads the world in the wearable device market. With the smart watch Apple Watch and AirPods wearable headphones, they are favored by consumers around the world, accounting for nearly one-third of the global wearable device market share. According to data released by IDC, apple shipped 39.8 million wearable devices in the third quarter of 2021, with a global share of 28.8%, ranking first in the industry. This is mainly the ear-mounted devices of AirPods and Beats that have helped Apple consolidate its leadership position in the wearables market.
At the same time, at a time when the meta-universe is in full swing, As the world's largest consumer technology company, Apple will also be expected to be one of the biggest winners of AR/VR virtual reality devices. Some analysts expect that Apple has begun to plan the second generation of AR/MR headsets, shipping time in 2024, compared with the first generation expected to be mass-produced at the end of 4Q22, the improvements of the second generation include lighter weight, design, battery system and processor.
Overall, consumer demand for Apple's smart hardware products is strong, by the Phone, Apple Watch, Airpods and other products in the global market demand, to promote Apple's revenue and profit continue to hit new highs, so that Apple earned a lot of money, net income of 1 billion yuan per day, the real sense of the daily jindoujin, is the world's most profitable listed enterprises. At the same time, it is also the world's highest market capitalization company, as of December 31, 2021, Apple's market value is as high as $2.91 trillion, is expected to become the first company in history to exceed $3 trillion in market capitalization.
Finally, in addition to smartphones, Huawei has actively developed smart home and cloud computing businesses, opened up new tracks, and gained a lot. Among them, Huawei's consumer business began to target the wearable device and smart home markets, and fully focused on whole-house intelligence. In the cloud service track, HUAWEI CLOUD ranks first in the global cloud service market, ranking fifth in the world and second in China. It can be seen that after the development of the consumer sector with mobile phones as the core is under pressure, cloud computing is one of Huawei's important development tracks, and new technologies such as 5G, Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence are output through the cloud, empowering the digital transformation of the whole society and harvesting industrial intelligence dividends, making it one of the five clouds in the world.
Yang Jianyong, a contributor to Forbes China and winner of the NetEase 2020 Most Influential Award, is committed to in-depth interpretation of cutting-edge technologies such as the Internet of Things, cloud services and artificial intelligence, and his views and research strategies have been cited by many authoritative media and well-known enterprises.