Huawei has emphasised Thailand as a strategic market and committed to continue its contributions to the country's digital development.
In Huawei's annual report 2020 released on Wednesday and at its recent Asia Pacific media roundtable, Huawei stressed the importance of Thailand as a strategic market where the company has maintained a local presence for 21 years.
"With steady global business development, regional robust growth, and a strong local presence, we look forward to seeing Huawei continuously fulfil its mission to 'Grow in Thailand, Contribute to Thailand' and help Thailand become a regional digital hub," the company said.
Abel Deng, Huawei Thailand CEO, expressed confidence in Thailand's digital development and confirmed that Huawei will continue to invest in the country where it has more than 3,200 employees with over 88% of them local staff.
Huawei Thailand won the Prime Minister Award as Digital International Corporation of the Year from Prime Minister's Office in March, becoming the first foreign company to do so.
At the ceremony, the prime minister congratulated Huawei executives and asked them to continue the company's mission to drive Thailand forward.
Last year, Huawei established Thailand's first 5G Ecosystem Innovation Center and this year it intends to launch a series of plans to consolidate the local digital ecosystem in collaboration with the government and industry partners through activities like the Huawei Cloud Spark Competition, 5G Innovation Competition, 5G Application Alliance, and Huawei Cloud and Connectivity Conference, said a spokesman for the company.
Huawei has been advancing the construction of ICT infrastructure, 5G connectivity and applications in Thailand. For example, in joint cooperation with Siriraj Hospital to help the hospital utilise 5G to explore and incubate applications such as 5G-powered ambulances, 5G-powered emergency rooms, and medicine delivery through unmanned vehicles for the first time in the Asia-Pacific region.
This year, Huawei will continue to help operators build 5G networks and release more 5G industry adoption solutions, including 5G hospitals, 5G tourism, 5G agriculture and 5G transportation. Meanwhile, the company will also cooperate with partners to launch the industrial cloud platform and the SMEs cloud platform.
In order to help cultivate Thailand's digital talent, Huawei initiated the Huawei Asean Academy (Thailand) with a target to produce 50,000 ICT talented individuals in five years and sow the seeds for future projects. The company is also launching the "Digital Bus" program to narrow Thailand's digital gap and TECH4Nature to improve environmental protection.
Huawei achieved a record profit last year, but revenue growth slowed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and US sanctions that have pushed the company into new business lines to survive.
Huawei said net profit rose 3.2% to 64.6 billion yuan ($9.9 billion) in 2020, while revenue inched 3.8% higher to 891.4 billion yuan.
"Over the past year we've held strong in the face of adversity," said Ken Hu, Huawei's Rotating Chairman.
"We've kept innovating to create value for our customers, to help fight the pandemic, and to support both economic recovery and social progress around the world. We also took this opportunity to further enhance our operations, leading to a performance that was largely in line with forecast."
"We will continue to work closely with our customers and partners to support social progress, economic growth, and sustainable development," said Mr Hu.
Looking at the regional level, the revenue generated in the Asia-Pacific Region decreased to 64.36 billion yuan, down 8.7% YoY. However, this region remains to play an important role in driving Huawei's global business growth. In Asia Pacific, Huawei carrier business maintained robust performance thanks to 5G network deployment, and its enterprise business continued to grow rapidly as an increasing number of local companies were going digital at a faster rate.
Jay Chen, Vice President of Huawei Asia Pacific, expressed his confidence in Huawei's sustainable growth in the region.
"The Asia Pacific region has always been one of the most important markets in our global business landscape and we continue to maintain our position with very healthy and stable operation in 2020," he said.
"With the challenges of 2020 now behind us, our relationships with our customers and partners have demonstrated their resilience and today they have greater confidence in Huawei with closer and stronger ties," he said.