Huawei appoints Meng Whanzou as president amid difficult context

Meng Wanzhou is appointed to the rotating presidency of Huawei, this Friday, March 31, 2023 (Illustration image). © Darryl Dyck / AP

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The Chinese telecom giant Huawei announced on Friday, March 31, a sharp decline in its profits in 2022 against the backdrop of US sanctions and appointed the daughter of its founder to the rotating presidency of the group.

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Born in 1972, Meng Whanzou was a few years ago at the heart of serious diplomatic tensions between China on one side and the United States and Canada on the other. His appointment was expected. She succeeds Eric Xu at the head of a company heavily penalized by the economic context and US sanctions.

Huawei has been blacklisted since 2019 by the US administration in a context of technological rivalry with China and suspicions of espionage on behalf of the Chinese authorities. "U.S. restrictions are our new normal," the group's new president said shortly after her appointment.

This measure cuts off the group from global component supply chains, but also from Google's Android operating system, present on the vast majority of smartphones in the world. A situation that heavily weakens the phone branch of Huawei, pushed in 2020 to separate from its entry-level brand, Honor.

A group still largely profitable

In this context, Huawei announced on Friday a net profit down nearly 69% year-on-year for the year 2022. The group made a profit of 35.6 billion yuan (about 4.7 billion euros), against 113.7 billion yuan a year earlier (about 15.2 billion euros). It was his best performance ever. On the other hand, the group's turnover increased slightly year-on-year (+0.9%), to 642.3 billion yuan (85.8 billion euros). In 2021, it had fallen by more than 28%.

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In 2022, a challenging business environment and non-market factors continued to weigh on Huawei's business " admitted at a press conference the group's current chairman, Eric Xu. "Significant investment in research and development" also explains the decline, a Huawei spokeswoman said.

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With AFP)

Diplomatic-judicial saga in Canada around Meng Wanzhou

On December 1, 2018, the discreet executive suddenly found herself at the heart of a diplomatic-judicial saga, exacerbated by a technological rivalry between the United States and China. Huawei's number two was arrested at the request of Washington during a stopover at Vancouver airport in Canada. Indicted for "bank fraud," Meng Wanzhou was accused of lying to circumvent U.S. sanctions on Iran. A crime punishable by more than 30 years in prison in the United States, to which she was threatened with extradition.

A few days later, two Canadians, Michael Spavor, a businessman, and former diplomat Michael Kovrig, were arrested in China, causing a crisis between Beijing and Ottawa.

After nearly three years of proceedings, Meng Wanzhou finally found freedom in September 2021 and returned to China. The American justice system definitively closed its proceedings against her in December 2022.

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