Trevor Liu, Chief Executive Officer of Huawei Technologies Kuwait.

KUWAIT: Huawei Kuwait announced the creation of an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) training center as well as the Seeds for the Future program, a corporate social responsibility initiative promised by the company to Kuwait as a long term feedback. Huawei, a Chinese multinational telecommunications equipment and services and fastest growing smartphone company, continues to support Kuwait ambitions and development strategies by providing end-to-end ICT solutions that give Kuwait organizations cutting-edge computing and connectivity capabilities.

Speaking with reporters at its headquarters at Al-Hamra Tower, Trevor Liu, Chief Executive Officer of Huawei Technologies Kuwait, said with the launch of the Huawei's global CSR program, the company is excited to be contributing to the development of young Kuwaiti talents, while introducing them to new career opportunities in ICT. our focus for the coming years is to work with the Kuwait government on key smart city initiatives and Internet of Things (IoT) adoption and deployment, as we believe that these technologies are instrumental to achieving its 2035 strategy and plan, Liu said.

He also lauded Huawei's plan to launch its first training center in Kuwait before the end of 2016 to advance ICT skills among Kuwaiti professionals, helping to support localization initiatives to increase the ratio of Kuwaiti professionals in the private sector. The target is to train more and more Kuwaiti young people on ICT technology, said Liu.

Liu noted that Huawei Kuwait continues to grow in the Middle East. We are the fastest-growing company in the Middle East. In a short period, we were able to capture the market quickly, and we are now the third largest smartphone/mobile telecom company worldwide. We acknowledge the challenges and competition in the market, but we will overcome them by supporting our customers with our best efforts. We have made a great impact on the market, he said.

Innovation

As the company faces challenges, innovative solutions and the promise of long-term commitment to customers are being recognized. We believe that if we have a long-term commitment plus a stable team in Kuwait - we have around 800 people currently working at the Kuwait office alone - it means a lot to the company, said Liu. He believes that the customer is the most important part of their everyday business in Kuwait. We do not want to focus on how our market share grows - we are more focused on how to satisfy customers. If you have a satisfied customer, then automatically you will have a fair share of the market, he said.

Since the new investment law was established in Dec 2014, Huawei has benefited in receiving its Kuwait company license. Huawei is proud to be one of the first companies to obtain a company license as a 100 percent-owned limited liability company in Kuwait. Considered to be the Pearl of the Gulf for its strategic location, Kuwait's economy has large growth prospects that can be helped through an advanced ICT infrastructure that can help the state to fully capitalize on the economic opportunities. This is where Huawei is keen to support through continued investments in education, knowledge-transfer and by supporting the Kuwait government transform its energy-driven economy to one that is based on knowledge, he said.

Since it entered the market in 2005, Huawei has had long-standing partnerships with many government organizations, regulators and operators, to provide them with latest technologies while providing cutting-edge communications capabilities to all Kuwaitis. Kuwait's Ministry of Communication commissioned Huawei in 2015 to complete the second phase of the GPON project, which saw more than 5,600 buildings and 60,000 houses connected through a high-speed, fixed-line fiber network. On the consumer side, Huawei is also seeing tremendous growth in sales of its Mate 8 and P9 smartphones, which are enjoying great success in Kuwait, Liu added. According to Liu, Huawei devices are currently ranked third in Kuwait with a 15 percent market share.

Cyber Threat

On the issue of cyber threats, Liu noted that accusations against Huawei are groundless. To date, not a single individual or organization that has questioned our integrity has ever provided any evidence to substantiate their allegations. We did nothing wrong, but let us accept the fact that cyber technology is quite a challenge to all of us, to many countries and parties. We believe all governments, industry stakeholders and customers should work together in an open and transparent manner to jointly address global cyber security challenges and raise those standards in order to ensure that network technology benefits consumers, he said.

He pointed out that Huawei's efforts in cyber security have been widely recognized, and in fact they have received the following awards: Cyber Security Organization of the Year Award from the Malaysian government, 10-Year Excellence in Information Security Testing Award by ICSA Labs and Transparency Award for cyber security in Germany. We have cooperated with Cigital, a third-party security evaluation company in the US, in BSIMM. According to the latest BSIMM evaluation results, we have performed well above industry average across 11 of the total 12 areas and on par with industry average in the remaining area, Liu noted.

By the beginning of next year, several new smartphones will be launched by Huawei. We have several cutting-edge smartphones ready to be unveiled by January or February next year. The features are yet to be announced as we do not want to preempt the launch, but it will be better than other products in the market and even better than we already have, Liu concluded.

By Ben Garcia