Huawei today used a new word to describe its modus operandi for the moment: survival.

That goal is a far cry from the high-flying, rampant growth days of Huawei’s recent past, but it’s a reasonable outcome following a years-long campaign by the U.S. government and some of its allies to cripple the world’s largest telecommunications equipment vendor. Most of Huawei’s struggles of late can be attributed to a series of moves intended to define the company as an agent for the Chinese government, including allegations of espionage, trade secret theft, sanctions violations, and significant security vulnerabilities in its software. 

The COVID-19 crisis has also negatively impacted the company, but expanding trade bans are also beginning to damage the company’s outlook, Huawei executives admitted during its annual analyst summit. The Commerce Department last Friday issued a new rule that blocks Huawei’s access to software and silicon from U.S. companies, hindering some of the company’s supply chain for its radio access network (RAN) gear. 

Irrespective of those many challenges, survival does not inspire confidence and companies are generally reticent to use it as a baseline for performance. In sharing her personal struggles prior to decamping from her adopted country of the United Kingdom in rather dramatic fashion, Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, famously told an interviewer: “It’s not enough to just survive something, right? That’s not the point of life. You’ve got to thrive.”

If Huawei was thriving it would certainly say so.

“Looking back at the journey there were busy and chaotic times when we had to have a lot of clarification and communication with customers and partners to ensure supply,” said Rotating Chairman Guo Ping, according to a live translation of his keynote. 

“In order to mitigate the impact of the entity listing we have significantly increased our [research and development] investments. In addition, our inventory has also increased, and that brought significant pressure for operations and luckily we’ve survived so far,” he said, describing the U.S. government’s widening trade ban directed primarily at Huawei. 

“Fixing the holes has been our focus over the past year. According to our rough calculations, we’ve invested over 15,000 man years in ensuring [information and communications technology] business continuity, we rewrote 16 million lines of code and redeveloped 1,800-plus boards, and also our procurement department reviewed over 16,000 part numbers,” Guo said. 

While these efforts have ensured some semblance of stability for Huawei amid its ongoing battles with the U.S. government and some of its allies, the company also warned that diminished access to technology components will damage its networking business. 

“Our business will inevitably be impacted. In spite of that, as the challenges over the past year have helped us to develop a thicker skin, we are confident about finding solutions soon. Actually, we still haven’t figured it out. The U.S. government persists in attacking Huawei but what will that bring to the world?” Guo said. 

With Huawei’s legal challenges failing to reverse actions taken by the U.S. government, the vendor is making a concerted effort to highlight its contributions to the industry and society at large. 

“Over the past three decades Huawei has taken digital technologies out of the ivory tower and accelerated the global adoption. We’ve deployed over 1,500 networks for over 170 countries and regions,” Guo said. “Given the changes in the industry over the past year, it’s dawned on us more clearly that fragmented standards and supply chains benefit no one. If further fragmentation were to take place, the whole industry would pay a terrible price."

Many of these issues spilled over into a heated debate during a panel at this year's RSA Conference. In a separate interview with SDxCentral during the event, Huawei USA CSO Andy Purdy admitted that the company has “had some bumps in the road,” and that was before the global pandemic hit. 

When the U.S. wireless market was more fragmented on cellular technologies, U.S. based equipment suppliers had to support GSM and CDMA, and it led to their decline, Guo said. Meanwhile, because Europe has a longer legacy in supporting unified standards, European-based RAN vendors like Ericsson and Nokia have remained competitive, he argued.

While that argument has some merits, it leaves out the fact that China also took a fragmented approach to 3G by using TD-SCDMA (time division synchronous code division multiple access). Moreover, while Ericsson and Nokia weren’t big CDMA RAN suppliers, it was also a part of their respective portfolios at the time. 

“Foundations of trust and global collaboration are under attack,” Guo said. “The U.S. moves against leading tech companies in other countries in the long run will shake the countries confidence in using American technology, escalate conflict in global industries, and ultimately hurt the U.S.’ interests.”

While the company is “suppressed, Huawei will never be closed off, but more open than ever,” he claimed. “We remain committed to a strategy of diversification and a global supply chain. Last year we purchased $18.7 billion from American suppliers. If the U.S. government allows them to sell we will continue to buy from American companies.”

Guo ended his keynote with a photo of a fighter plane riddled with bullet holes on the large screen behind him, using it as a metaphor for the company’s current position. “Over the past year, patching up the holes was our priority and we have toughened our skin,” he said. “When the going gets tough, the tough keep going.”