Huawei spends 3 times more on research and development than Apple

Huawei technology company has been banned from accessing US technology since 2019 – Photo: CNBC

On April 25, Bloomberg News reported that the R&D budget of China’s largest technology company reached 21 billion USD in 2021, more than any company in the world outside the US.

This is equivalent to 22.4% of Huawei’s revenue in the same year. Huawei’s ratio of R&D investment to total revenue is nearly twice that of technology giants Amazon and Alphabet, and more than three times that of Apple.

These numbers show the Chinese technology company’s efforts to develop electronic chips, networking equipment and even smartphones without American technology.

Huawei has been banned from accessing US technology since 2019, after Washington accused it of being a national security threat. The sweeping sanctions have blown away nearly a third of Huawei’s revenue in 2021.

According to Bloomberg data, Huawei is one of only six companies worldwide that spent more than $20 billion on R&D last year. The total amount of money Huawei spends on R&D is almost equal to Microsoft, about 1 billion USD less than Apple and 2.5 billion USD less than Meta (Facebook’s parent company).

Amazon and Alphabet top the list with total expenditures of $56 billion and $31.6 billion, respectively, on R&D.

Bloomberg assesses Huawei’s efforts have shown results. The Chinese technology company received 2,770 US patents last year, ranking fifth after IBM Technology Group.

Huawei says it has 195,000 employees in 2021, of which 107,000 (about 55%) “work in R&D”.

Under pressure from sanctions, Huawei has sought to raise capital by selling off assets, as well as relying on revenue from patents and intellectual property.

In 2021, Huawei sold its Honor line of phones to another consortium and abandoned its x86 server business.

According to Bloomberg, although the company’s 2021 research and development budget doubled from the previous five years, Huawei’s annual growth still decelerated.

Huawei reports revenue decline but net profit up 76%

TTO – Huawei Group (China) announced that its business performance last year had achieved outstanding results when despite US sanctions, Huawei still increased its net profit by 76%.