Middle East has emerged as a global 5G trailblazer. In just 19 months, the number of 5G users has exceeded two million, a milestone that took the previous 4G technology twice as long. Huawei remains the 5G solutions provider of choice for many Middle East telecom carriers and enterprises. It is a position earned as a result of investing early and heavily in technology R&D. The company began 5G research as early as 2009 and has invested $4bn in 5G so far. Moreover, Huawei’s R&D investment over the past decade has exceeded $110bn. Middle East has been an exciting region for us given the enormous scale of developments that are underway that can be empowered by technology. This is epitomized by the rapid development of 5G that has exceeded many expectations. The region today is more connected than at any point in history.
ICT industry thus has an important responsibility to create new social and business value for governments, organizations, and individuals. Huawei believes that cybersecurity is a shared responsibility. The company has thus been working together with governments, security experts, and enterprises across the Middle East to help evolve cybersecurity assurance and privacy protection systems. Despite a challenging global environment, Huawei continued to boost its operations. That led to achieving revenue and profit growth during 2020 overall. Part of that came down to a focus on R&D and joint innovation programs in areas like 5G, AI and cloud, with Huawei establishing 13 Open Labs around the world to support open collaboration.