About Huawei in the UK
Huawei was first established in the United Kingdom in 2001, and since December 2003, Huawei Technologies UK Co. Ltd. has been the company’s European Headquarters, located in Basingstoke, Hampshire.
Huawei has since made a significant investment in the UK and has local sales operations in Basingstoke and Ipswich.
Huawei’s staff force has tripled in size over the past two year – from 100 employees in 2005 to over 300 hundred today – and this upward trend is set to continue. Huawei expects to increase its number of UK-based employees to 350 in 2008. The company is proud of its multicultural staff force and is committed to attracting the best local experts to join the company in the UK- currently 80% of its total staff have been recruited locally.
Huawei has received an excellent response from the market, and will continue to expand its investment in the UK in the coming years. Some of Huawei's UK & Ireland customers include BT, VDF, T-mobile, Hutchison 3G, Opal Telecom, Viatlel, COLT, Fibernet, Cable&Wireless, Tiscali, Evoxus, Smart Telecom, Centric Telecom and Gamma Telecom. The contract sales were 180 million USD in 2006, and are expected to reach 300 million USD in 2007.
In December 2005, Huawei signed a contract with BT to deploy its multi-service access network (MSAN) and provide optical transmission products for the revolutionary 21st Century network in which BT would invest £10 billion over the next five years.
Huawei is committed to sharing its expertise by providing training within its sector, and on 16th of May 2005, it opened its training centre at Faraday Office Park, with the initial course being an optical network course for British Telecom (BT). This marked the ability of Huawei Technologies to conduct quality training services in the UK (and European market), for its customers and partners.
In August 2005, a fully-functional, industry-leading Technical Assistance Centre (TAC) was established at Huawei UK’s headquarters in Basingstoke. This centre aims to provide enhanced support services to the UK and European market. It is open around-the-clock, 365 days a year, and is fully supported by trained product specialist engineers, who are committed to ensuring that service promise commitments are met.
In 2005, it opened an R&D centre in Ipswich, which is focused on supporting BT with its 21CN project.
Products
Huawei UK is focused on providing end-users with a seamless convergent telecommunications experience anytime, anywhere, and via any terminal. As such, it offers a range of Next Generation end-to-end Telecom and IT network solutions to Mobile and Fixed Line Operators and Enterprise Networks. The full product portfolio includes wireless products, network products, application and software products and terminals.
Huawei UK Enterprise Solutions also exists to provide the wider UK enterprise market with a data communication product portfolio, supported by a traditional partner network and offering customers a real choice in the market.
Partnerships
Huawei places great emphasis on global cooperation with its peers to ensure a steady and sustainable growth and sharpen the company’s core competitive edge. The company therefore operates with leading industry players to deliver innovative, customised solutions that best meet customers’ needs. Implemented at a global level, these collaborations benefits UK customers.
Huawei has joint R&D labs with Agere Systems, Intel, Texas Instruments, Motorola, Sun Microsystems, Qualcomm, Microsoft and Infineon Technologies.
Huawei has entered in to joint ventures with 3COM, Siemens, Nortel, NEC and Matsushita.
In the UK and Europe, Huawei is particularly proud of its partnerships with BT, VIVO, Vodafone and Telefónica.
Recognition
In February 2005 Huawei Technologies UK was named Chinese Inward Investor of the Year 2004 at the Annual Chinese New Year Dinner organised by London Export in association with The 48 Group Club. The award recognised Huawei’s UK presence and its investment in to the UK economy, which has led to a significant number of local job opportunities and massive potential for future growth.
In October 2005, Huawei won an InfoVision Award, in praise of its innovative contribution to progress in the information industry. The InfoVision Award was presented by the International Engineering Consortium ("IEC"), a non-profit organisation dedicated to encouraging technology and business progress worldwide.
In July 2004, Huawei’s customer, Fibernet, was awarded European Metro Ethernet Service Provider of the year 2004 – Best in Business, by the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) and Enterprise Networks. Fibernet is utilising Huawei's RPR technology across a national Ethernet/MPLS backbone, providing a high-performance, converged services platform for key business customers. The combination of resilient packet ring network technology and wire-speed performance has enabled Fibernet to deliver true carrier class Ethernet services – proving that Huawei's Next Generation Data Products deliver real benefits to customers.
Social Responsibility
November 2006: Huawei sponsored a Soundfield System for Westwood Farm Infant School to improve speech audibility in the classroom for both hearing and hearing-impaired children at the school.
Soundfield equipment works through a sound amplification system and ensures that teachers' voices are clearly audible wherever children are located in the room and whichever direction the teacher is facing. The equipment sponsored by Huawei at Westwood Farm Infants is used in the classroom, meaning that hearing-impaired pupils can pick up the signal directly through their hearing aids via their radio aid receiver and that hearing pupils can sit anywhere in the room.
Milestones
Year 2001
Ø Huawei Technologies UK established in London
Year 2003
Ø Huawei’s European headquarters established in Basingstoke, UK
Year 2005
Ø UK customer training centre opened
Ø UK R&D and Technical Assistant Centre established
Ø MSAN and 21CN contracts with BT signed
Ø Tiscali UK uses Huawei’s equipment to enable the roll-out of its Local Loop Unbundling services across the UK
Ø Huawei wins InfoVision Award for its innovative contribution to progress in the information industry.
Ø Huawei becomes an approved supplier for Vodafone's Global Supply Chain
Ø Huawei UK is named Chinese Inward Investor of the Year 2004
Year 2006
Ø Huawei UK sponsors Soundfield System for Westwood Farm Infant School
Ø Opal Telecom signs an installation and support contract with Huawei to build its next generation network
Ø Huawei introduces its new logo
Ø Huawei and Vodafone introduce the Vodafone-branded V710 3G handset
