Tech war: Huawei's Meng Wanzhou ends rotating chairmanship with 5G smartphone comeback, cementing heir-apparent status
Huawei Technologies Co chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, daughter of company founder and chief executive Ren Zhengfei, has finished her six-month stint as Huawei's rotating chairwoman, overseeing the telecoms giant's surprise return to the 5G smartphone market amid US sanctions.
Meng, 50, took up Huawei's rotating chairwoman role on April 1 this year, and has cemented her role as Ren's heir-apparent with a number of high-profile speeches in the last six months.
Ken Hu Houkun, deputy chairman of Huawei's board of directors, assumed the rotating chairman role as of October 1 in a tenure that will last until the end of March next year, Huawei said in a statement published on Saturday.
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Hu, who joined Huawei in 1990, has served in a number of leadership positions including president of Huawei's China market, president of global sales and chief strategy and marketing officer, according to Huawei. He has helped "set the strategic direction" for Huawei and has been "instrumental" to Huawei's growth in the global market, the company said.
Privately-held Huawei has struggled in recent years amid US trade sanctions, which have blocked its access to advanced semiconductors developed or produced using US technology. As a result, Huawei has been unable to launch a new 5G smartphone since late 2020, and missed several updates to its premium smartphone models in recent years.
That changed in late August though with the launch of the 5G-capable Mate 60 Pro handset, powered by an in-house Kirin 9000s chip. The smartphone has triggered intense speculation about how the chip has been developed while the firm has been subject to strict US sanctions. Huawei has maintained a silence on the subject, while the phone itself has triggered a wave of patriotic sentiment across China.
Meng was hailed as a national hero upon her return to China in a chartered flight in September 2021, after spending nearly three years under house arrest in Canada where she fought extradition to the US over accusations that she misled banks to violate sanctions against Iran. Under a deal reached with US prosecutors, that case and other charges against Meng were dismissed.
Meng said in a public speech last month that Huawei would adopt a new "all intelligence" strategy to transform itself into a key provider of computing power to support China's artificial intelligence (AI) development. Meng also said Huawei would support organisations and industries in using their data and specialised knowledge to develop large language models.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2023 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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