by SAVIOUS KWINIKA
JOHANNESBURG – HUAWEI, which is contending with a ban from the United States (US), said it had for some time been working to mitigate the impact of the ban on its clients in South Africa.
In a statement, the technology company and smartphone maker, said in South Africa, it would “continue to serve all our customers and partners with the same focus and dedication as before, and contribute to the ICT sector with vigour, as the fourth industrial revolution is a key economic focus for growth and social development.”
It pledged to continue providing security updates and after-sales services to all existing Huawei and Honor smartphone and tablet products, covering those that had been sold and that were still in stock globally.
“We will continue to build a safe and sustainable software ecosystem, in order to provide the best experience for all users globally.”
In an interview with a local media house on Wednesday, Huawei Vice President of Corporate Communications, Glenn Schloss, said their devices were “completely unaffected” by restrictions in the US.
“For owners of Huawei handsets in South Africa it will be business as usual,” Schloss said.
He said the company remained positive and preparing for various eventualities.
“We are stockpiling components and have been working with our supply-chain partners for some time,” Schloss assured.
In an interview with Chinese media this week, Huawei Founder and CEO, Ren Zhengfei, was also bold.
“We will certainly be able to continue serving our customers. Our production capacity is huge, and adding Huawei to the Entity List won’t have a huge impact on us. We are making progress in bidding worldwide,” Zhengfei said.
Zhengfei highlighted in the first quarter of this year, Huawei’s revenue grew 39 percent over the same period last year.
“This rate decreased to 25 percent in April, and may continue decreasing towards the end of this year. But the US ban will not lead to negative growth or harm the development of our industry,” he said.
– CAJ News
