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Huawei is selling off its undersea cable business

F-22Raptor

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China’s Huawei has had to battle suspicions and worries about the security of its networking equipment for many years, which most recently culminated in it being placed on a US blacklist by the Trump administration. Now, Huawei is officially bowing out of one line of business, by agreeing to sell off its undersea cable operations, and reportedly shrinking another, by reducing smartphone production orders with supplier Foxconn.

Huawei Marine Systems, in which Huawei holds a 51 percent stake, lays undersea fiber optic cables between continents in much the same way that Microsoft, Facebook, and Google have been doing. It was established in 2009 and has laid more than 50,000km of cable across 90 projects, according to its website. In recent times, however, the toxicity of Huawei’s reputation as an alleged Chinese spying facilitator has made it increasingly difficult for Huawei Marine Systems to win contracts, as the FT reports. That reports cites Fergus Hanson from the International Cyber Policy Centre at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, who says “It’s becoming a more difficult environment when trying to negotiate deals to build cables because [Huawei] is so much in the spotlight.”

Hengtong Optic-Electric, another Chinese company, is buying Huawei’s share of the submarine cable operation, and it made the planned sale official in a filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The price of the transaction has not been publicized.

In other Huawei news, a report from the South China Morning Post indicates that Foxconn, leading production and assembly partner to many smartphone makers, “has stopped several production lines for Huawei phones in recent days as the Shenzhen company reduced orders for new phones.” This appears to be a direct response to Huawei’s placement on the Trump blacklist, which deprived the company of its Android license, effectively neutering Huawei’s European Android smartphone business until further notice.

The SCMP goes on to report that Foxconn had apparently been hiring new staff earlier in the year to help it cope with Huawei’s growing demand, and Huawei was indeed on a path to becoming the world’s biggest smartphone vendor by the end of 2019. Reaching that goal has now been substantially delayed by the US ban setback and may even become impossible, depending on how long Huawei’s enforced estrangement from Google and other US partners continues.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/3/1...business-sale-trump-ban-smartphone-production
 
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JUNE 3, 2019 / 11:34 AM / UPDATED 20 HOURS AGO
China's Huawei to sell undersea cable business, buyer's exchange filing shows - Reuters
Sijia Jiang

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Huawei Technologies Co Ltd plans to sell its undersea telecom cable business, showed a buyer’s filing on Monday, in its first major asset sale since the United States ratcheted up accusations of the Chinese firm being a vehicle for espionage.

Hengtong Optic-Electric Co Ltd, an optical telecommunication network products company based in Jiangsu province, said in the filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange that it signed a letter of intent with Huawei Technologies subsidiary Huawei Tech Investment Co Ltd on May 31 to buy its 51% stake in Huawei Marine Systems Co Ltd via cash and share issuance.

The filing did not disclose a price.

Huawei Technologies declined to provide immediate comment when contacted by Reuters. The potential sale comes as Huawei’s main business of making and selling telecom network equipment and smartphones is under intense global scrutiny as the United States works to persuade allies that Huawei’s products pose a security risk.

Huawei has said it would not cooperate with any Chinese state request to access its systems for intelligence purposes. Even so, the U.S. Commerce Department imposed a trade ban last month that threatens to significantly disrupt its supply chain.

In March, The Wall Street Journal cited U.S. security officials as saying the suspected security risk extended to undersea cables built by Huawei Marine.

Undersea cables are the backbone of global internet traffic. Huawei has been gaining share in the market dominated by U.S. firm SubCom, Japan’s NEC Corp and Europe’s Alcatel-Lucent, since Huawei Marine was established in 2008 as a joint venture with Britain’s Global Marine.

Huawei Marine has participated in 90 projects worldwide and built 50,361 kilometers (31,293 miles) of cables, its website showed, including a 6,000 km cable connecting Africa and South America for the first time completed in September last year.

It booked 2018 net profit of 115 million yuan ($16.66 million) on revenue of 394 million yuan, according to Huawei Technologies’ annual report.

The annual report also showed Huawei Technologies gained majority voting rights on Huawei Marine’s board in August 2018, with Global Marine retaining a 49% non-controlling interest.

Global Marine did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on Monday, and calls to its Asia-Pacific office in Singapore were not answered.

According to exchange filings, Hengtong Optic-Electric’s largest shareholder is privately owned Hengtong Group with a 15.66% stake. Hengtong Group’s founder and owner Cui Genliang is the second-largest shareholder with 14.95%.

Hengtong Group on its website said it is China’s biggest solutions provider in fiber-optic networks and smart electricity grids, with over 70 subsidiaries at home and abroad, including Indonesia-listed cable maker PT Voksel Electric Tbk.

Hengtong Optic-Electric booked 2018 net profit of 2.5 billion yuan on revenue of 33.9 billion yuan, according to its annual report. It has delivered over 10,000 kilometers of undersea cables, including for projects in Papua New Guinea, Chile, Bolivia and Mexico, the annual report showed.

Trading of Hengtong Optic-Electric shares was suspended on Monday pending deal discussions.

Reporting by Sijia Jiang; Editing by Christopher Cushing
 
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Huawei Buys Up Russian Company Specialising in Facial Recognition Tech - Report

© AFP 2019 / Adrian Dennis

According to Russian business media, the buy-up, which included technology patents and part of the Russian company's development team, took place in May.

Chinese telecommunications titan Huawei has purchased Vocord, a Moscow-based tech company focused on facial recognition systems, in a $50 million deal, Russia's Vedomosti newspaper has reported, citing sources familiar with the agreement.

Huawei's Russian subsidiary and its Hong Kong-based Huawei Digital Technologies division will gain the intellectual property rights to Vocord's patents and equipment, and part of its employees.

The deal was reportedly struck on May 17.

Founded in 1999, Vocord has developed and produced security systems for private and public sector use based on technologies including computer vision and intelligent video processing algorithms, with products in areas including video analysis and surveillance, video enhancement and authentication, license plate recognition, audio recording and facial recognition. The company has a staff of 120.

Huawei has been in the forefront of international media attention since last month, when the United States added the tech giant to a trade black list amid security concerns. Several major US companies, including Google, have suspended business ties with the company. The US and several of its allies have accused the company of being controlled and sponsored by the Chinese state. Huawei dismissed the accusations, and blasted the US move to blacklist it.

https://sputniknews.com/science/201906031075590660-huawei-buys-russian-tech-company/
 
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what we see here is HW going through the process of redefining itself. transiting from "Telecommunications" to "Consumer Electronics/Software".

it would feel strange for a company of the latter, such as Apple inc. to run an undersea cable business
 
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FedEx fell 3.14% in front of the U.S. stock market on Monday. On this basis, FedEx will evaporate $1.26 billion (about 8.7 billion yuan) at the opening of the market value.

@ F-22Raptor
@ David L. Cunningham
 
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Hwei is dead, CN is dying, too cos they cant sell anything under US sanction.

All CN can do now is just sit and wait for a serious incoming chaos in near future due to million jobless Cnese get angry and become "rebels" :cool:
 
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what we see here is HW going through the process of redefining itself. transiting from "Telecommunications" to "Consumer Electronics/Software".

it would feel strange for a company of the latter, such as Apple inc. to run an undersea cable business

Huawei is not Apple. Huawei is networking equipment vendor like Cisco. Their foray into smart phones is recent. It would make sense to own undersea cable business
 
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