Huawei rotating chairman Eric Xu  warned 2020 is going to be difficult as its focus turns to survival, with the company set to take a hardline approach to staff performance.

In a New Year message to employees, Xu said it will continue to remain on the US entity list and it won’t grow as rapidly as it did in the first half of 2019.

Huawei is set to keep a very watchful eye on its employees this year: “By transforming the organisation, our primary goals are to hone our ability to fight and cut red tape. Any teams that don’t contribute to enhancing the competitiveness of operating units or improving strategic support and services will be merged or downsized. People who are made redundant during this process will be transferred to other teams to ensure focus and the company’s survival.”

He added: “We will promote those who truly help our customers succeed… At the same time, we will remove mediocre managers more quickly – people who have lost their enterprising spirit, who have built their position on personal connections or empty and unactionable reporting.”

Xu said Huawei needs to more actively plan its managerial pipeline, with managers performing in the bottom 10 per cent being removed each year.

In November Huawei paid CNY2 billion in bonuses for employees who helped mitigate the impact of a ban on doing business with US companies.

Revenue growth impresses
Xu said despite the threat of US sanctions, which is affecting suppliers and consumer sentiment, and bans on its 5G gear in a number of countries, the vendor estimates revenue for 2019 increased 18 per cent year-on-year to CNY850 billion ($122 billion), slightly below 2018’s growth of 19.5 per cent. Smartphone shipments rose 16.5 per cent to 240 million units, up from 206 million the previous year.

Android alternative
To continue to have access to device markets outside of China, Xu added the company needs to go all out to build its Huawei Mobile Services ecosystem, an alternative to Google’s Android platform. Due to its US trade spat Huawei is banned from deploying Android on newly released smartphones and is now trying to attract developers to create apps for its new overseas app store.

Meanwhile Huawei’s boss also reiterated the vendor’s plan to “press ahead with out US$2 billion five-year budget” for R&D.