back to article Huawei is the new Nokia: Asian mobe maker sets out its stall

A little over a thousand CTOs, CIOs and decision makers from the world’s mobile phone networks attended Huawei's mobile broadband forum event this week. It gives us a view of not only how Huawei sees the world, but of how it sees itself. This year the event was held in Hong Kong. The twenty-three speakers were primarily …

  1. Mikel

    Definitely a rising star

    There is a lot of money to be had bringing modern life to the world's poorest. But they are going to need electricity to power those gadgets so some cheap personal solar or something is in order as well. Not a lot of mains power in those parts.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    So where will Huawei be in 2030?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      So where will Huawei be in 2030?

      At one time it was Samsung that was the new Nokia. So Huawei may be the new Samsung. I could be really sarcastic and write "still failing to compete with Apple", but I do feel that with each succeeding generation the iPhone is losing its advantages over Android, and by about 2020 phones will be about as commodity as the Bakelite phones of the old landline network and most people won't have a clue who made theirs.

      By 2030, if we manage to avoid nuclear war, Huawei may be something we've never had before and the communications industry may be unrecognisable, just as the present setup would have been totally unimaginable to the people who bought BT shares in the Thatcher era.

    2. King Jack
      Big Brother

      So where will Huawei be in 2030?

      Making implants for the UK citizenship. At least in Cameron's eyes.

  3. bed

    As an oldie, I resent that...

    "(no one notices that oldies don’t have phones)".

    Depends on how you define oldie; anyone older than you is an oldie. However, this household of happliy retired wrinklies is quite well equiped with windows phones (1020 and 930), a Nokia E7 as a beside clock and an E71 as a standby.

    And alll of my contemporaries seem to have phones, though some, those not having had the dubious benefit of a career in IT perhaps, may not make the best use of them.

  4. Richard Altmann

    Nokia

    kicked off the mobile internet, Samsung and Apple overran it, Huawei is the paradigm changer. They know how the third world (spare me "developing countries") ticks and react to the market. The Western World wants to implant its own values. Now look at Mobile Money in East Africa. The Western World banks rally against such systems because it makes them obsolete. With the claim that you are either a telecom or a bank. East Africa refused to bend over to the international banks. Now there is Tecno and Huawei with budget phones but build in Mobile Money function. Colonial times are over and the third world picks what is best for them, no longer eating the shit that is downthroated to them by the first world. The villagers are paying the schoolfees via Mobile Money without having to waste one day or more to walk to the next bank, queing up for hours and being charged ridicioulus fees and bribe for their transfer. This makes the world a better place. Apple, Samsung are just toys for people with a status problem or small dicks. Nothing to do with usability. That´s, where Huawei kicks in. They do products for the market instead of creating markets for shit that noones needs. My P6 is the best phone i ever had. Nokia was "the" brand in East Africa. I still use my 1600, noone wants to steal it. In Nigeria it´s the Blackberry. Written off in the Western World but going strong on markets where the function matters, not the glitter. In 2030 Iphone will just be a footnote in the history of Telecommunication like Nokia. Not so Huawei. They provide the full package, PBXs, datacenters ... you name it.

  5. Youngone Silver badge
    Alert

    iPads?

    Why did Huawei, a maker of Android devices hand out iPads to attendees, and not provide a proper Wi-Fi connection?

    I'll tell you why. Because like every Chinese company I've ever dealt with they have no f*#%ing clue what they're doing.

    The only way Apple (and others) get quality from their Chinese manufacturers is by constantly looking over their shoulders making sure they provide what they're contracted to.

    Go to China, have a good look around the plush head offices of some of these big companies. The toilets overflow, the roof leaks, and the carpet doesn't fit properly.

    China does cheap really well, but it's completely half-arsed.

  6. Chairo
    Flame

    My last Nokia phone

    Was a imminently useful gadget. A feature phone for sure, but at the time it already supported navigation, could sync my appointments and was completely reliable.

    My current Huawei phone on the other hand... Introduced in 2013, one single functioning update the same year and afterwards given up and abandoned by it's maker. No support whatsoever. The new Nokia? I don't think so.

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