Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies (華為) yesterday rejected suggestions its telecommunications equipment is vulnerable to hacking and forecast a rise in last year’s profit of nearly 50 percent.
Chief financial officer Cathy Meng (孟晚舟) rejected as “groundless” reports that Huawei equipment might be more vulnerable to security threats than telecom infrastructure made by other companies.
The German magazine Der Spiegel reported last month that the US National Security Agency installed secret “back doors” in telecom equipment made by Huawei and other companies. Earlier, some researchers said they found vulnerabilities in Huawei routers.
“We have seen no incidents on networks due to security problems,” Meng said at a news conference. “A lot of reports say Huawei equipment has more vulnerabilities or is more easily breached. These reports are groundless.”
Huawei, founded in 1987, has rejected security risk claims as trade protectionism that it says hurts US consumers by limiting competition and raising the cost of telecom equipment.
Huawei, the first Chinese firm to break into the top ranks of global technology companies, is privately held, but has released more financial details in recent years in an effort to win greater acceptance abroad.
The company expects an operating profit of 28.6 billion yuan to 29.4 billion yuan (US$4.8 billion to US$4.9 billion) for last year, said Meng, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei (任正非). That would be an increase of 43 to 47 percent over the previous year’s operating profit of 19.96 billion yuan.
Last year’s revenue rose 8 percent to about 240 billion yuan, Meng said, adding that revenue was forecast to rise by a similar rate of 8 to 10 percent annually over the next five years.
The company, based in the southern city of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, says it serves 45 of the world’s 50 biggest telecom carriers. Meng said that Huawei equipment is used in 110 of 244 commercial 4G mobile phone networks worldwide, including in cities such as London, Zurich and Hong Kong.
The company has promised to release a list of shareholders and their stakes, which might help to clarify who controls the company.
Meng said the board of directors has agreed to such a step and is seeking approval from employees who own shares.
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Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
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