What a fall! The company which was touted as the expression of China’s technology growth story has now shifted its focus to pig farming. Huawei, which had grand plans for expanding its business as well as the Chinese Communist Party’s interests globally, is now fighting for existence. The offensive against Huawei that previous US President Donald Trump launched and which the world followed seems to have brought the company and the CCP on their knees.
With no access to vital components and smartphone sales in tatters, Huawei has been forced to look for alternate sources of revenue generation. With the reports suggesting that the manufacturing of smartphones will be reduced up to 60% this year, it has turned towards pig farming. However, the fact that the company had to make such a contrasting transition, from smartphone manufacturing to pig farming, tells how severely the company has been impacted.
Under the Donald Trump administration, the USA had slapped back-to-back bans on Huawei as it was in cahoots with the Chinese Communist Party and it could share the data of international users with them. And now with the CCP and government banks devoid of any liquidity to support the company, it is taking desperate decisions. The precarious situation of the Chinese economy has left the company to fend for its own.
In July 2020, Donald Trump designated China’s two telecom giants Huawei and ZTE as “national security threats”. And during his last few days in office, Donald Trump was unrelenting on his mission to weaken the Chinese telecommunication giant. He also revoked the licenses of major US firms which allowed them to sell equipment to Huawei.
It is since then that the CCP’s Huawei is reeling with equipment shortages, plummeting profits and loss of consumer base outside China.
Huawei’s semiconductor suppliers including Intel were notified that their licenses to sell to the Chinese company have been revoked. Furthermore, it was also apprised that the administration rejected dozens of other applications to be supplied to the telecommunications firm.
Read more: Trump’s final blow to China – Huawei is banned in the US forever.
Now with the sale of Huawei smartphones at an all-time low and the company struggling to access microchips due to sanctions, it has found the saving grace in the business of pig farming. This can be ranked as one of the worst business diversification drives any technology company has taken up. As per the news reports, along with Artificial Intelligence (AI) tech for pig farmers, Huawei is also working with the coal mining industry.
The company spokesperson tried to buttress the decision of the company. “The pig farming is yet another example of how we try to revitalise some traditional industries with ICT (Information and Communications Technology) technologies to create more value for the industries in the 5G era,” the Huawei spokesman told BBC.
The Chinese Communist Party’s technology giant has been struggling to keep up the act that all is well, and the US sanctions do not have any impact. However, as the company stoops to a position where it is trying to reduce the losses and sustain itself, it is apparent that Huawei is struggling for existence and China is unable to support the company financially. A single development has laid bare the reality of Huawei as well as China.