Huawei today released its 2021 annual report, achieving global sales revenue of 636.8 billion yuan, down nearly 28% year-on-year, but net profit of 113.7 billion yuan, an increase of 75.9% year-on-year. Even after excluding gains from asset disposals, net profit still improved year-on-year. In the face of pressure, Huawei has tried to break through in the technical route, supply chain, and underlying theory. Huawei's large-scale investment in research and development reached a record high of 142.7 billion yuan, accounting for 22.4% of the annual revenue, and the cumulative investment in research and development expenses in the past decade exceeded 845 billion yuan.
Smaller scale for profitability and cash flow enhancement
In 2021, Huawei's carrier business sales revenue was RMB281.5 billion, enterprise business sales revenue was RMB102.4 billion, and terminal business revenue was RMB243.4 billion.
Thanks to the improvement in the profitability of its main business, Huawei's operating cash flow has increased significantly in 2021, reaching 59.7 billion yuan, and the asset-liability ratio has been reduced to 57.8%, and the resilience and resilience of the overall financial structure are strengthening.
Speaking for Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou at Huawei's 2021 Annual Report Press Conference
Meng Wanzhou, Chief Financial Officer of Huawei, said: "Our scale has become smaller, but our profitability and cash flow acquisition capabilities are increasing, and the company's ability to cope with uncertainty is constantly improving.
In terms of 5G network deployment, Huawei, together with operators and partners, has signed more than 3,000 commercial contracts for 5G industry applications, and 5G has been commercialized on a large scale in manufacturing, mining, steel, ports, and medical care. According to third-party reports, in 13 countries, including Switzerland, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia, huawei's 5G network user experience is the best.
For key industries such as government, transportation, finance, energy, and manufacturing, Huawei released 11 scenario-based solutions and established legions such as coal mines, smart highways, customs, and ports to integrate resources and efficiently serve customers.
In the terminal business, the three restricted businesses of mobile phones, tablets and PCs declined, and smart wearables, smart screens, TWS headsets and consumer cloud services all achieved sustained growth, of which wearable devices and smart screen business revenue increased by more than 30% year-on-year. With more than 220 million Huawei devices equipped with HarmonyOS, it is the fastest growing mobile terminal operating system in the world.
Pressure-based investment in research and development
Huawei R&D investment
Since 2018, Huawei has been under continuous pressure, and how to get rid of the crackdown has always been the focus.
"In the future, our survival and development will rely on strong investment in the field of research and development, Huawei is strengthening breakthroughs and research in basic technology and cutting-edge science, and Huawei's R&D investment reached a record high last year." Huawei rotating chairman Guo Ping said, "Facing the future, we will maintain a strong investment in research and development, Huawei's problems can not be solved by reducing food and clothing, we must optimize the system architecture, improve software performance and explore theory." At the same time, by solving the technical and technological problems, we will build a high-speed, credible and reliable supply chain. “
Guo Ping, Huawei's rotating chairman, delivered a speech at Huawei's 2021 annual report press conference
Huawei is now facing difficulties in obtaining advanced technology, and when it encounters difficulties in leading single-point technology, Huawei is actively seeking system breakthroughs and striving for competitiveness in system engineering. "System drive component design, framework for the system." Guo Ping said. Through the continuous small improvement of components and frameworks, we try to promote the improvement of system capabilities.
Huawei is working on technical capabilities around the world, close to academic sources, cooperating with universities around the world to establish joint laboratories, and working with scientists around the world to build a beacon for the future.
To the three reconfigurations to be competitive
At this year's Mobile World Congress, Guo Ping proposed Huawei's three reconstructions for the first time: theoretical reconstruction, architecture reconstruction, and software reconstruction. Digitalization and carbon neutrality are two of the most important issues in the world today and have a profound impact on the future of ICT. Some forecasts say that the digital economy will account for more than 50% of GDP this year, and the demand for digitalization will exceed expectations. On the supply side, Shannon's theorem and von Neumann's architecture have encountered major bottlenecks. Therefore, Huawei proposes to explore new theories and new architectures to support digital sustainable development.
In terms of theoretical reconstruction, Huawei continues to explore a new generation of MIMO and wireless AI theories to approach the limits of Shannon theory, while further developing semantic communication and trying to exceed Shannon's limits. Meta AAU, launched according to MIMO's innovative theory, can improve the upstream coverage of communication cells by 30% and reduce energy consumption by 30%, which was also launched at this year's Mobile World Congress.
In terms of architecture design, wireless and optical technology are coordinated to solve the problems of wireless ultra-high frequency, ultra-large bandwidth and ultra-high speed, and break through the bottleneck faced by future chips.
In terms of computing architecture, a peer-to-peer architecture is being designed to break through the CPU-centric architecture of traditional computing architectures, so that GPUs, NPUs, and new hardware can support the great development of AI.
In terms of software reconstruction, the demand for computing power in ai in the future has exploded sharply, but the improvement of hardware capabilities is slowing down, so Huawei has raised the priority of software, sorted out the technical system of basic software, and more effectively exerted the potential of diversified computing power through Hongmeng and Euler. Guo Ping said that Huawei doubled the number of wireless cells and dispatching users through software doubling calculations, and increased the user access performance of Ether switches by 3 times. Optical transmission has also been greatly improved. "This allows us to maintain world-class competitiveness in extremely difficult circumstances."
Some of the theories and structures have already taken effect. In terms of material technology, Huawei has to choose alternative processes, such as Huawei's use of gallium nitride instead of LDMOS, which reduces power consumption by 20%; in optical communications, breakthroughs in LCoS (silicon-based liquid crystal) exchange and digital optical layer support the evolution of OXC and achieve a jump direct.