Kathy Gibson reports – 2020 was a tough year for Huawei as US sanctions took their toll, but the company still managed to grow its business.
This is the words from Stone He, president of Huawei Cloud (Southern Africa), who adds: “We have already built our Plan B – we would like to use global technology, but if we can’t we will build our own ecosystems. We have our own supply chain.
“Over the last two years we haven’t lost any customers in Africa, because we have been able to continue to supply the technology.”
One of the organisation’s focus areas going forward is cloud. “We have invested in more than 23 regions for public cloud infrastructure,” He says. “And South Africa is an important region for us, for long-term investment.”
He says Huawei Cloud aims to build an ecosystem, growing with partners.
According to Gartner, Huawei Cloud has the number two market share in the China mainland, after Alibaba. Globally, it holds the number five position.
“In the next few years, Huawei Cloud has great opportunity to grow.”
In the past two years, Huawei has launched two available sites in South Africa, covering the whole southern Africa region.
“And we have plans to invest in a third site soon. We will continue to invest with our partners and customers.”
Over the next years, Huawei aims to train more people on the ground in South Africa, to improve the quality of services to end users, He adds.
In terms of revenue, Huawei Cloud has achieved more than $5-million in the African region, with a range of mostly South African users already resident on the organisation’s infrastructure.
The Huawei Cloud value proposition includes a desire to grow the market together with partners, says He. “Partners and end users are still starting to realise the benefits of using cloud. Huawei aims to enhance partners’ capabilities in this regard. We want to enable partners to have better abilities, to deliver services to the end user.
“And I want to share value with the partners.”
This is important, He says. Some partners are still concerned that cloud vendors will disintermediate partners. “There will always be a need for local service integration, and Huawei will support partners in this.
“And we make the investment up front so partners don’t have to.”
South Africa is leading the move to cloud in the African region, He says. But he thinks the country is still in early days of cloud adoption, and a player like Huawei is key to helping develop the market.
The company is well placed due to its history in the market, along with its focus on the end user experience, He adds.
“And we are the most cost-effective cloud service. We have built infrastructure in South Africa, we have local operations, and we have great cost-efficiency.”
And the organisation continues to invest in cloud technology, with $20-billion ploughed into R&D last year, He says.
He acknowledges that some customers are concerned about whether they can trust the Huawei Cloud.
“We continually comply with the best security protocols,” he explains. “However, there is no 100% security environment in this world: it all depends on regulation, partners and the end users.”
Importantly, Huawei Cloud is an open system, He points out. “So we are open to all players in the market.”