The Asia-Pacific region is ripe for digital transformation, and the pandemic has hastened this process. According to the Asian Economic Integration Report 2021, Asia Pacific would earn an annual economic dividend of over $1.7 trillion, or more than $8.6 trillion by 2025. Until 2025, the rising usage of digital technology will result in the creation of around 65 million new employment each year in the region.
Huawei‘s unwavering business strategy, focused on connectivity and computing and rapidly developing new businesses such as digital power and cloud, is perfectly aligned to drive the digital economy in Asia Pacific. This will further be supported with stable human, financial, and business fundamentals, the highest net profit in history, and continued efforts to globalize under pressure and increase R&D investment.
Taking Advantage of Major Digital Trends
I’m re-energized by the prospects for our digital future as we shift gears from COVID 19 being a major disruptor to focusing on new chances for digital transformation. In 2022, our Huawei vision and mission continues, that is to bring digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world. This year with Mobile World Congress 2022 now behind us, I can think of no better opportunity to re-emphasis this vision and extend it to our view for the future world of 2030.
Looking at the future world in 2030, Huawei is predicting various indicators across 4 broad areas that include Digital Life, Digital Industries, Digital Infrastructure and Digital Carriers.
For Digital Life, new XR and enhanced multimedia experiences will scale to 1 billion users and offer immersive solutions that will redefine everything from museum visits to shopping. Combining the data requirement for this with Digital Industry will mean the amount of data generated worldwide each year will likely exceed one trillion gigabytes and cloud services will account for more than 87% of enterprise application spending.
Digital Infrastructure will improve energy conservation and emission reduction with renewable energy accounting for 42% of the industry’s electricity generation. ICT technologies, while consuming only 2% of global energy, will help reduce CO2 emissions by 20%.
Underpinning all this will be Digital Carriers, supporting more than 200 billion connections and providing more computing and storage capabilities to Industries.
Experiences will be redefined, processes will be optimized, and new business will be sparked in the Intelligent World. We aspire to engage with customers, partners, governments, industry, and consumers to enrich lives through this new digital future by combining business, technology, and sustainability.
Advancing Digital Infrastructure Innovation
Our future world will be fundamentally driven by three forces: business, technology, and sustainability. First, business-driven factors will emerge as a result of the use of digital technologies in a variety of industries to accelerate digitalization and improve services. Second, technology-driven forces will emerge from new connectivity including 5G Advanced, 6G, and IPv6+ and computing technologies that are evolving to enable new applications.
Lastly, sustainability-driven forces including green development, social responsibility, and fast response to emergency situations will profoundly change people’s lives.
Connectivity and cloud are the lifeblood of the digital frontier; however, the digital readiness of the region varies greatly. Huawei’s Global Connectivity Index (GCI) shows that India, Indonesia and Philippines ranked 63, 58, and 59 respectively out of all countries, while Singapore ranked No.2. Philippines and Indonesia are the lowest in fixed broadband speeds compared to Singapore, and Thailand at the front. More broadly, cloud penetration in the region is less than 20%, 4G mobile coverage is slightly above half, and FBB reaches barely one-third of households.
Under our Tech4All initiative, for example, Huawei’s Rural Star program, with the aim to provide Internet and connectivity for underdeveloped regions since 2017, has successfully cooperated with 12 operators in 8 countries, including Thailand and Indonesia, in its first year.
In the remote mountains of Chiang Mai, Thailand, for example, Huawei’s AirPON solution reuses existing poles and fiber resources, creating an “air network equipment room” that has provided connectivity to more than 10,000 villages.
As part of its efforts to create a greener and more sustainable digital world, Huawei will increase its investment in sustainable green solutions, electric transportation, and smart energy storage, to support the Asia Pacific region’s goals of cutting carbon emissions and contributing to a circular economy.
Bringing Asia Pacific to Life
Asia Pacific, as one of the world’s most populated and diversified areas, is poised to become the world’s fastest-growing economy group, propelling it to the forefront of the global digital scene. Many countries in the region have recently published their national digitization agendas.
For example, Singapore released its Smart Nation 2025 blueprint. Indonesia and Malaysia released strategies to go digital, Bangladesh has released its strategy called Digital Bangladesh, and Thailand announced its vision to become a digital hub in ASEAN.
In this great journey, we are committed to supporting the region’s digital vision as a key contributor. Towards this goal, we will focus on three key areas: Connectivity and Intelligence, Low-Carbon Development, and Digital Inclusion initiatives.
Digital connectivity, which includes 4G, 5G, fibre, and IoT, is critical to the digital economy’s development, and it has been hastened by COVID-19, as demand from digital subscribers and for digital services has increased dramatically. Huawei is unquestionably a leader in this field, not only in terms of product and solution development, but also in terms of fundamental theoretical research and industrial design.
Cloud Computing and Intelligence is the cloud Infrastructure for the intelligent Asia Pacific, including data centers, cloud services and AI enablement to support data monetization and promote industry digitalization. According to Gartner’s latest report, HUAWEI CLOUD was the fastest growing cloud in the global IaaS market with a growth rate of more than 220%. In Asia Pacific, we operate 7 Availability Zones in Thailand, Hong Kong, and Singapore and have local service teams in over 10 countries.
Through heavy R&D investment, the carbon emission for our E2E products and services has been reduced by over 80% for the same capacity. Huawei combines digital and electronic technologies to develop innovative digital power services and minimize the carbon footprint of ICT infrastructure. By the end of 2021, Huawei will have helped global customers reduce carbon emissions by 230 million tons and in Singapore, we supported Sunseap Group with industry-leading solar inverters to build one of the world’s largest offshore floating farms, contributing to the clean energy landscape in Asia Pacific.
Lastly, we will keep driving digital innovation for an inclusive Asia Pacific and leave no one behind. In our vision, a digital world is not just about technology, it is about people and humanity. Over the next 3 years Huawei will invest US$100 million to build the startup ecosystem in Asia Pacific, and over the next 5 years, we will invest US$50 million to develop 500,000 digital talents. In Malaysia, we launched our TECH4ALL initiative to help bridge the digital divide and with our Huawei IdeaHub smart screen, we have connected students in remote areas to digital interactive learning centers.
Huawei’s Outlook
Huawei’s business strategy is clear, focusing on connectivity and computing, and developing new businesses that include digital energy and cloud.
In third-party tests, Huawei’s Carrier business continues to profit from 5G network infrastructure construction and remains robust, with 13 abroad nations having the best experience with Huawei’s 5G network. Overseas, we promoted 3,000 5G applications with our operators and partners, including many for industry commercialization. We’ll continuing using more than 3,000 5GtoB initiatives to assist operators launch 5GtoB services more successfully, and we’ll continue to support industry transformation like Smart Mining, Smart Manufacturing, and Smart Ports.
Our Enterprise business, established in 2011, already includes more than half of the top Fortune Global 500 companies and more than 30,000 partners, helping various industries transform including education, government, finance, energy, transportation and more.
Cumulative shipments of smart wear devices now exceed 100 million worldwide, driving our Consumer business and expanding more into scenario- and ecosystem-based development to deliver a truly unmatched experience.
Our Harmony operating system has surpassed 220 million users globally and Asia Pacific continues to lead with the rapid development of our consumer HMS ecosystem.
Our Cloud and Digital Energy businesses achieved double-digit growth in part due to a community of over 8 million Huawei Cloud developers and green sites deployed in more than 100 countries worldwide.
Going forward Huawei will adapt to this new environment with an optimized organizational structure and continuously improve our operating capabilities. Huawei has both the capabilities and confidence to continue serving our customers with innovative, business-aligned, sustainable solutions.
Our commitment to innovation, transparency, cooperation, and shared success continues to guide us. We leverage our world-leading strong investment in R&D and drive the implementation of our globalisation plan, which encompasses standards, talent, and supply chain, even under extreme pressure. We can continue to provide value to customers, collaborate with partners for shared success, and contribute to society as a whole by doing so.
