The Wall Street Journal reports, "in a rare interview with journalists, Ren Zhengfei said the company he founded is investing and opening itself up in an effort to build trust with foreign customers and governments. Huawei has faced allegations in the U.S. that it is a security risk, as well as the threat of an European Union investigation into allegations that China is dumping or subsidizing products pertaining to mobile-telecommunications networks".
"My reluctance to meet with the media has been used as a reason to label Huawei as a mysterious company," Mr. Ren said through a translator during the interview. In a few years, "our idea is to make people perceive Huawei as a European company," he said.
As part of the push, Huawei will increase investment in European research and development, and will extend an employee incentive plan to all key non-Chinese employees this year in order to attract and keep top talent, Mr. Ren said.
Huawei's new openness comes as the company in recent years has faced scrutiny in Europe, where its growth has buffeted competitors, including Sweden's Ericsson and France's Alcatel-Lucent. In the U.S., meanwhile, Huawei has been effectively shut out of the telecom equipment market after a 2012 congressional report saying the company's gear could be used by Beijing to spy on Americans.
Huawei grabbed nearly 22% of mobile-network infrastructure spending in Europe, the Middle East and Africa last year, up from just 12% in 2010, according to market-research firm Infonetics. By contrast, in North America, Huawei had only a 2.8% share of that market in 2013—prompting the company to pull back from investments there.
Huawei, founded by Mr. Ren in 1987, has repeatedly denied it has benefited from government subsidies, and said that allegations it is a conduit for espionage are tantamount to China-bashing. Mr. Ren is a former officer of the People's Liberation Army, but the employee-owned company denies direct links to the Chinese government or military.
Key to Huawei's defense against allegations of dumping is its growing investment in research and development to improve its products and raise prices. Mr. Ren said its gear is now being priced at record highs in Europe. He also said the company would continue to increase its research spending, which rose last year to roughly $5 billion, at average 2013 exchange rates, compared with Ericsson's $4.9 billion.
Change has its limits, however. Mr. Ren rejected the idea of taking his company public in the coming years, saying that public shareholders would force Huawei to focus too much on the short term, rather than long-term research and development.
Huawei has an unusual private structure in which it is owned by its Chinese employees, including Mr. Ren. He holds roughly a 1.4% stake, but has veto power over important decisions, a right he says he has had no reason to exercise yet.
"Shareholders are greedy and they want to squeeze every bit out of the company as soon as possible," Mr. Ren said. By contrast, Huawei's employee-owned structure, he said, is "part of the reason Huawei could catch up and overtake some of our peers in our industry."
