Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei maintains that he is ‘an Apple fan’

Huawei Technologies founder and chief executive Ren Zhengfei maintains that he is “a fan” of Apple, despite intense competition between the US-blacklisted Chinese company and the American tech giant in the world’s biggest smartphone market.

Ren said he was against “xenophobia” towards any foreign brand and sees Apple as a valuable teacher, the 78-year-old Chinese technology entrepreneur told university students and academics who took part in the Huawei-sponsored International Collegiate Programming Contest held last month.

“We often explore why Apple’s products are so good, and we can also see the gap between us and Apple,” Ren said, according to a memo of his talk that was published on Tuesday in the event’s website.

“I’m very happy to have a teacher that gives us the opportunity to learn and compare [our performance],” he said. “In that sense, it would not be an exaggeration to call me an Apple fan.”

Ren indicated that his daughter used Apple products when she was studying in the US, in an apparent reference to youngest daughter Annabel Yao who was a Harvard University student from 2016 to 2020.

He had expressed his admiration for Apple during an interview in May 2019, when he described the Cupertino, California-based company as “an example we look up to in terms of privacy protection”.

Earlier that same year, Ren said that Huawei should learn from Apple in terms of pricing strategy so that “competitors will be able to survive”.

Ren’s latest published comments reflect the internal focus he wants Huawei to pursue, which is to maintain the company’s technological lead in specific areas and focus on developing internal talent.

Huawei executive calls for greater adoption of Chinese-made semiconductors

His remarks also come amid the patriotic fervour inspired by Huawei’s recent launch of the Mate 60 Pro and Mate 60 Pro+ 5G smartphones powered by the advanced Kirin 9000s processor, which are all made-in-China products that have become symbolic of the country’s defiance of crippling US tech sanctions.

Privately-held Huawei, along with its chip design arm HiSilicon, were added to Washington’s Entity List in May 2019. The company has scrambled to adapt its production of smartphones and telecommunications network equipment amid tightened trade restrictions imposed by the US government in 2020, covering access to semiconductors developed or produced using US technology, from anywhere.

“US sanctions have definitely put pressure on Huawei, but pressure is also motivation,” Ren told the students during the talk.

Huawei ups its smartphone sales target amid Mate 60 popularity: report

“After the US crackdown, we were forced to switch to another [infrastructure] platform, which was difficult,” Ren said. “Now we have established our own platform, which may not necessarily run on the same foundation as the American platform, but they will certainly be interconnected.”

With the growing popularity of its new Mate 60 Pro devices, Huawei has seen a chance to restore its handset business in the world’s biggest smartphone market even though it faces stiff competition from Apple’s new iPhone 15 series. In the second quarter, Huawei returned to China’s top-five smartphone vendor rankings.

The Shenzhen-based company has raised its smartphone shipment target for the second half of 2023 by 20 per cent, according to a report by Chinese newspaper Securities Daily.