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Huawei is a leading telecom solutions provider headquartered in China. Through continuous customer-centric innovation, it has established end-to-end advantages in Telecom Network Infrastructure, Application & Software, Professional Services and Devices. With comprehensive strengths in wireline, wireless and IP technologies, Huawei has gained a leading position in the All-IP convergence age. Its products and solutions have been deployed in over 100 countries and have served 45 of the world's top 50 telecom operators, as well as one third of the world's population.

It has set up more than 100 branch offices worldwide in order to provide quick services to its customers. Also, it has established 17 R&D centers around the world such as in the Silicon Valley and Dallas in the United States, Stockholm in Sweden, Moscow in Russia and Bangalore in India to ensure global R&D with outstanding people. In addition, it has 36 training centers worldwide to help customers and local people to study advanced management, technologies. It firmly believe in localizing its global operations, and makes it a point to hire local employees. This not only enhances its understanding of the local market, but also contributes to the local economy by increasing employment, especially in less developed regions.
Huawei first established in Italy in July 2004, and set up its Milan and Rome offices in the same year and in April 2006 it opened the Turin office.

What are the main activities of Huawei in Italy?
Huawei Italy is focused on providing end-users products with a seamless convergent telecommunications experience anytime, anywhere, and via any terminal. As such, it offers a range of Next Generation end-to-end Telecom and IT network solutions to main Mobile and Fixed Line Italian Operators such as Telecom Italia, Vodafone, Wind, 3 and Enterprise Networks. The full product portfolio includes wireless products, network products, application and software products and terminals. On top of that, in July 2010, Huawei launched to the Italian open market its branded new smart phones based on Android, U8110 e U8230 technologies. It has also been presented 2 GSM mobile phones, G6600 e G7002, and the new Wi-Fi modem E5830S.

What made Huawei choose Italy? Why did you decide to expand your business in Milan?
Huawei decided to expand its presence in Italy thanks to the important competences found at local level, the best example to report is the creation in Italy of its Global Microwave R&D center serving both the Italian and the Global market. The Italian operators are very strong both on fixed and mobile communication and they are making high investments in the development of new technologies. Huawei was involved in very innovative local projects such as the technical development of the first trial of LTE/4G network with Telecom Italia in 2009.
Italy is also a very active market in terms of consumer mobile applications. Huawei is a proud supplier of the main operators with its well known USB modems and mobile phones.

What changes have you noticed in Italy since you first came here in 2004?
The Italian operators are more and more investing in broadband solutions.
In 2004 when Huawei started its presence in the country, China was not perceived as point of excellence for the high-tech market. Now the perception is different and Huawei gives a strong contribution, thanks to the high-level of solutions and services offered to the telecommunications operators. Huawei solutions passed the strong testing phases and demonstrated to be best in class solutions.
Furthermore Huawei believes in the importance of research and development and invests an average of 10% of its revenues in R&D on an annual basis. 46% of its employees are dedicated to research. Huawei holds the second place worldwide for the number of registered patents, with 1.847 registrations in 2009.

What makes the company different from its competitors? What does entail being a world provider of telecom solutions?
There are four elements that make us very competitive in the Italian market and let us be a world provider of telecom solutions:
1. Our technology. We provide state-of-the-art technology that meets the needs of the most demanding customers.
2. Our innovation. We are very fast in transforming key innovations into market realities. Our customer focused innovation means that any customer can be confident that Huawei can satisfy their innovation requirements in a very short period of time.
3. Our people. We have a strong, experienced and committed workforce that ensure a high level service and delivery.
4. Competitive offer. Our competitive offer to customers is not related to the fact that we manufacture in China. We are a Global company with a strong focus on R&D. Our R&D competence centers are not only located in China but also present where local expertise and know how makes the difference. For example in Milan, in Paris, in Sweden, in Palo Alto (US) and in Bangalore, as well as in other key countries.

Do you find Italy a “business friendly” country? What are the main advantages of investing in Italy?
The positive feedback received by the operators and the good ecosystem combined with the positive collaboration with some Italian universities make us very positive for the current and future business in the country.

Are you going to hire Italian workforce?
Currently Huawei has 97,000 employees worldwide and more than 300 in Italy (70% are Italian), where, within 2011, we expect to reach 450 people. The positions are opened all over the local territory.

What is your relationship with national and local government? What kind of support have you received from them?
We have a positive interaction with the Italian Government. We are pleased of the recent visits received in our Headquarters in Shenzhen and Shanghai of the Minister of Telecommunications , of the President of Lombardy Region, and of the Major of Rome.

How do you foresee the near future? Do you think you will make new investments?
We are very optimistic about our future in Italy, the feedback of our customers and the results achieved so far are the best foundations for our success in the country.

December 2010