Huawei CEO Underscores Importance of Information Security Amidst Projections for Global Traffic Growth

The public appearance by Huawei Founder and CEO Mr. Ren Zhengfei further marks company’s emphasis on being more transparent in its own work in the security field

Mobilk - During a presentation at the recently held St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), Huawei Founder and CEO Mr. Ren Zhengfei outlined the company’s commitment to addressing global issues of information security while emphasizing Huawei’s dedication to being open and transparent in its own approach to data security topics.

The company—a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider—projects that worldwide network traffic will grow by 75 times over the next 10 years with mobile broadband in particular growing by more than 2,000 times. On a regional level, analysts at research group Informa have already suggested that mobile subscriptions in the Middle East will push past the 250 million threshold sometime in 2012. The Middle East and Africa region as a whole will also lead the world in terms of the percentage of mobile broadband subscriptions through 2012, according to a new report from analyst firm Pyramid Research.

 

Huawei’s Mr. Ren believes one of the factors key to the development of the global telecoms industry is not just the creation of networks wide enough to manage huge amounts of data, but matching these with more robust security features. Huawei has been providing security solutions to the global telecom and enterprise market since 2002, and has served more than 100 operators and numerous enterprise customers in more than 40 countries worldwide. 

 

Late last year, Huawei even went so far as to buy security solution provider Symantec’s 49% stake in the two companies’ joint venture Huawei Symantec for $530 million—integrating the ventures security and storage technology with Huaweis existing products.

 

“Data by nature tends to be open,” commented Mr. Ren. “As data flooding increases far faster than prevention technology develops, the whole industry faces information security challenges. Cyber security is a common issue that the whole industry has to face. We must join hands to proactively address this issue.”

 

Having kept a low profile in the past, Mr. Ren’s speech marks yet another instance of increased public exposure for the Huawei Founder and CEO this year, following a presentation at the EU Competition Forum in February. Based on Huawei’s commitment to be more open and transparent, the company’s Annual Report released earlier this spring included updated information about Huawei’s management team—including Mr. Ren—while disclosing more detailed information about the company’s three business groups and the members of the Huawei Supervisory Board Committee. 

During the SPIEF 2012 forum, Mr. Ren also highlighted Huawei’s plans to deepen its roots in Russia responding to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s call for more investment in Russia to develop its electronic information industry. Mr. Ren believes that Russia is poised to experience another golden age as the country possesses the talents and resources necessary to advance its ICT industry. Since entering the Russian market 15 year ago, Huawei has kept its commitment to localization and currently has more than 1,300 employees in Russia—of whom 80% are locally hired. 

“The key to the future development of the electronic information industry lies in cyberspace technology. Cyberspace is a new strategic domain unlike physical territory. What makes the two domains different is that competition in cyberspace is not characterized by occupying territories and forming closed positions, but by being openly accessible,” noted Mr. Ren. “We must utilize information to benefit mankind and adopt a positive attitude towards data floods—not merely look at the ills or complexities that they create.” 

 

Working towards this goal, the Middle East is currently one of the fastest growing regions for Huawei around the world. The company’s regional headquarters in Bahrain was established over a decade ago with offices today spread across 10 countries with over 3,500 employees in markets such as Bahrain, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait.