Huawei's rotating chairman, Guo Ping, announced that the company will continue to do everything it can to strengthen its supply chain, despite continuing to face "great pressure" and constant "attacks.".
"Huawei is in a very difficult situation these days. The relentless aggression has put significant pressure on us," he said on Wednesday, during his speech at Connect 2020.
“We are still assessing the specific impacts. Right now, survival is the goal.”
Ping elaborated on this point, clarifying that the continuous attacks he referred to came from the US government.
“The US is constantly attacking us and has amended its laws for the third time, and this has created great challenges for our production and operation ,” he said, speaking to the media.
In August, the US government expanded its restrictions on the Chinese giant, banning it from buying chips from foreign manufacturers that use American technology. It also added 38 more Huawei subsidiaries to the Entity List, including Huawei Cloud Singapore and Huawei Cloud France.
The United States also banned American companies from buying, installing or using foreign telecommunications equipment, citing fears of cyber espionage .The ban mainly targets Chinese equipment providers, such as Huawei, although the executive order did not name them.
Despite the chipset ban, Ping said the company has "sufficient inventory" to support its business.
"Regarding our mobile phone chipsets, as we consume hundreds of millions of chipsets every year, we are still looking for ways to address the situation. However, we are also aware that US chip suppliers are trying to convince the US government to continue supplying Huawei," he said.
Ping also took the opportunity on Wednesday to call for “transparency and cooperation.” “We hope the government will reconsider its decision,” he said.
“If they are willing to supply us, we would be willing to buy from them. At the same time, we will continue to adhere to our procurement strategy ... we believe that cooperation is the best model for the global industry.”
Meanwhile, Huawei continues to be barred from participating in the creation of 5G networks worldwide. The most recent incident was in Canada when Bell and Telus announced that they would not continue to use Huawei equipment in their respective 5G networks
On Wednesday, the rotating chairman also spoke about the company's decision to reduce its number of jobs in Australia, which could lead to up to 400 layoffs over the next five years thanks to the company's 5G .
"Australia is a small market for us. It has never been a priority," Ping said.
“We always prioritize our resources for high-quality customer service. Because resources are limited, we must use them to the fullest to support the customers who really need us and support them to succeed. We make adjustments to the business depending on the situation.”
Despite other pressures, the company said it is focusing on cloud, artificial intelligence and industry technology applications to deliver value to customers. “There are huge opportunities in that,” Ping said.
