Huawei CEO warns of 'financial winter'

It seems it's not just Ericsson and Nokia that are struggling in the telecoms gear business. Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei has warned staff to prepare for a “financial winter.”

 “A financial crisis may soon be upon us,” he said in a recent internal speech which was leaked to Chinese website C114.net.

The 72-year-old former PLA officer stressed the need to cut “ultra-long term inventory and long-term debt” and called on the company to adopt the ROADS digital transformation programme it is urging on operator customers.

While he didn't specify details, it seems the impending financial crunch he refers to is an industry problem rather than one confined just to Huawei. After all, this is a company that boosted sales 40% in the first half of 2016 and finished last year with positive cash flow of $7.4 billion.

The other surprise was the revelation that Huawei is "learning from Trump.”

Ren said Huawei need to cut the number of IT change projects, and in an apparent reference to the real estate mogul's approach to cutting waste, he added: “We are learning from Trump. For every new node, we must close two nodes. Processes must support simplification, and IT apps and files must have a sunset clause.”