2018 Is a Year Huawei Would Like to Forget

It would be an understatement to say 2018 was not a good year for Huawei. Things started going south early in January and only got worse as the year progressed. After months of troubles, the year culminated with the company’s CFO, who also happens to be the founder’s daughter, getting arrested in Canada at the behest of the U.S. government. Huawei’s misfortunes in 2018 began from concerns that the company’s telecommunications equipment could be used for cyber espionage. For that reason, the company became a target of U.S. politicians. Then its troubles became inextricably connected with tensions between the United States and China over trade and tariffs. Finally, toward the end of the year, the U.S. government accused Huawei of circumventing sanctions to sell telecom equipment to Iran. Let’s recap the events of Huawei’s worst-ever year. In early January, Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group, was scheduled to give a keynote at CES in Las Vegas where it was anticipated he would announce a ground-breaking deal in which AT&T would begin selling Huawei smartphones. Instead, AT&T backed out of the arrangement at the last minute.