Huawei eyes public cloud services

Source: Xinhua | 2017-04-12

CHINESE telecoms equipment and smartphone maker Huawei Technologies Co yesterday said it aims to compete with Amazon.com Inc and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd as a global provider of public cloud services.

The Shenzhen-based firm, which last month reported its slowest profit growth in five years, said it will grow in cloud computing with a dedicated division that will hire 2,000 more people this year.

“We used to focus on private cloud and did well,” Zheng Yelai, president of the new unit, said at an annual analyst meeting. “Now the purpose is to strengthen our public cloud offering.”

Public cloud services involve shared data infrastructure, rather than dedicated infrastructure built for single customers. Consultancy Gartner expects the market for public cloud services to reach US$383 billion by 2020 from US$247 billion in this year.

By expanding in cloud computing, hardware-focused Huawei hopes to continue developing software-based revenue.