Despite the Coronavirus Disease-induced stunted growth of the global economy, Huawei Technologies Company Nigeria Limited has moved higher in the global top 500 enterprises, from the 49th position in 2020 to the 44th in 2021.
The company disclosed this in a statement made available to Financial Street on Monday.
According to the statement, the firm entered the list for the first time in 2010, ranking 397th, and by 2020, leapt from 72th to the 49th place, and broke into the top 50 for the first time.
The Fortune Global 500 annual ranking measures the business revenue of the top businesses across industries, the companies generated revenues totalling more than one-third of the world’s Gross Domestic Product and employed 69.7 million people.
After reaching a record high of $33.3tn in the 2020 edition, the total revenue for the world’s biggest 500 companies fell by 4.8 per cent to $31.7tn in 2021, the first decline in half a decade – no thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic that led countries into lockdown.
However, there was a boon for technology companies; a sector that not only demonstrated its importance to society, but also managed to continue to grow in 2020.
Compared to the same period last year, Huawei’s net profit margin increased to 9.8 per cent from 9.2 per cent, as reported in its half year 2021 financial result.
Huawei’s Rotating Chairman, Eric Xu, stated, “We’ve set our strategic goals for the next five years. We are confident that our carrier and enterprise businesses will continue to grow steadily.”
The company has benefitted from its diverse business, operating in all regions in the world, in different markets from telecommunications to Information Technology and energy, and from the increase in businesses digitising across many different industries.
Huawei also benefitted from its large patent portfolio.
“Huawei expects to rake in around $1.2bn to $1.3bn in patent and licensing fees between 2019 and 2021,” the Head of Huawei’s Intellectual Property Department, Jason Ding, reportedly said earlier this year.
Noting that Huawei has one of the largest patent portfolios in the world, he said the company invested over 15 per cent of its sales revenue into Research and Development last year in technologies such as 5G and Cloud.
