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Networking - Monday, March 21, 2005

Huawei Technologies - Profile

HQ: Shenzhen, China

Founded: 1988

Management: A mystery. We need to get to know these people as they may become the next tech superstars.

Investors: 100% owned by company insiders.

Business Model: Huawei has 25K employees and billions in revenues but remains private. The company sells a broad-range of telecom networking equipment from wireless to wireline to data networking products. It reported sales of $5.58B in 2004, a 45% increase over the prior year. It also claims to be making a fat profit.

Competitors: Cisco, Alcatel, Nortel, Lucent.

Dirt: Huawei is little known inside the US, but is growing by leaps and bounds elsewhere. The company started as a low cost provider of generic products, but has invested substantially in R&D and has gained ground on everybody in the sector. If the company continues its present rate of growth it will surpass Nortel and Lucent; everyone but Cisco. The company appears to be headed for an IPO, and is working on marketing to make its brand better known. When we set up the a:c office in Shenzhen, we'll be all over these guys.