Huawei set to make big waves in the channel

Chinese giant Huawei dominated CeBIT 2012 with its branding presence, pushing other vendors into the shade.

We had a chance to talk to Frank Hou, senior vice president of enterprise sales in Western Europe – that’s a $3.8 billion business, he said, and Huawei has established a multiple channel business in the space of just one year, with the general policy of having at least two distributors in every country.

Huawei, a privately held Chinese company, had an even bigger present at the Mobile World Conference held in Barcelona, Hou said. Yes, it makes mobile phones too. In fact, judging from its presence at CeBIT and the number of products it announced at the German show, the company is pretty well nigh unstoppable.

This year, Hou’s division will launch a total of 22 Intel based enterprise servers – four are available immediately. The company is targeting commerce, government, public sector and transport and Hou told us last week that its enterprise business is expected to turn over a staggering $15 billion, three years down the line.

Of course, Huawei is usually associated with telecomms infrastructure – Cisco is threatened by its presence outside its home territory. And because it’s been successful in that arena, that immediately gives it an “in” on the corporate enterprise front.

There have been protectionist rumblings in the United States because of a perceived connection with the Chinese government, but Hou insists that his company is open and clear about its strategy. And no, a public float is not on the cards, any time soon. MicroP is one of two of its disties here in the UK.

Huawei the lads? Huawei is not going away – it’s here to stay. Here’s the amiable Hou giving a one minute pitch to ChannelBiz at CeBIT 2012.

One Minute Pitch: Frank Hou, SVP for Sales, Western Europe Enterprise Business Unit, HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES (CeBIT 2012)