硅谷风混搭国企作派

The vibe on the Huawei campus, spread out across two square miles in the city of Shenzhen, north of Hong Kong, is more state-owned enterprise than Silicon Valley.

华为(Huawei)总部坐落在香港以北的深圳市，整个园区占地两平方英里。这里的氛围有点硅谷的感觉，但更像是一家国有企业。

Workers clock in at 8.30am (dawdlers are sent an email), lights are dimmed at noon and noisy printing of documents prohibited until 2pm, so they can pull out cots and snooze.

员工在早上8点半上班（迟到的人会收到一封电子邮件），中午灯光调得很暗，下午1点半之前不允许有打印文件的噪声，好让大家可以拿出折叠床小睡一会儿。

The Chinese telecoms giant’s views on the bottom line betray a similarly collectivist bent: Huawei “does not pursue high profitability; we share our profits with our customers and industry partners”, it says.

这家电信设备巨头对利润的看法，同样折射出一种集体主义倾向：该公司表示，华为“不追求高利润，我们与客户和行业合作伙伴共享利润”。

Yet there is an intriguing blend here of high-growth tech behemoth and a socialist indifference to making money.

然而，华为身上体现出一种耐人寻味的混合特质：它既是一家高增长的科技巨头，又抱着一种不在乎赚不赚钱的社会主义情怀。

The mixture has produced success for a company that brought in Rmb521.6bn ($75.6bn) in sales last year. At the same time, as revenues jumped 32 per cent, net profits barely budged, whittling margins back to 7 per cent.

正是这种混合特质成就了华为，去年该公司销售额高达5216亿元人民币（合756亿美元）。在营收大增32%的同时，净利润却是没什么变化，利润率回落至7%。

Its handsets are the third most popular globally, trailing just Apple and Samsung, and are now ranked top in China, according to the IDC research firm — overtaking shipments of its nearest rival Oppo in the first quarter, with a 20 per cent share. On the enterprise side, its network infrastructure equipment is used by telecoms carriers across much of the globe, pummelling Ericsson and the Alcatel-Lucent-bolstered Nokia.

研究公司IDC的数据显示，以市场占有率来看，华为的手机位居全球第三，仅落后于苹果(Apple)和三星(Samsung)；在中国国内目前排在第一位，今年第一季度其出货量超过实力最接近的对手Oppo，市场占有率达20%。在企业业务方面，华为的网络基建设备被全球许多地区的电信运营商所采用，大挫爱立信(Ericsson)以及收购了阿尔卡特-朗讯(Alcatel-Lucent)的诺基亚(Nokia)。

But the US, rattled at the prospect of entrusting its communications network to a company founded by a former People’s Liberation Army officer and with what it sees as state links, remains a holdout here.

不过，华为在这块业务领域仍被美国拒之门外。该公司是由一名中国人民解放军(PLA)的前军官创办的，而且在美国看来，华为与中国政府之间牵扯不清，因而美国不放心由这样一家公司来承建本国的通信网络。

So great are American concerns that when Japan’s SoftBank bought Sprint Nextel in 2013, it had to pledge not to use equipment made by the employee-owned Chinese company and rip out Huawei kit used by Clearwire, a data network operator being acquired by Sprint.

就因为美国顾虑重重，2013年日本的软银(SoftBank)收购Sprint Nextel时，只得承诺不使用华为的设备——尽管华为是一家员工持股的公司——并将淘汰Sprint当时正在收购的数据网络运营商Clearwire所使用的华为设备。

That did not please Masayoshi Son, according to a person close to the Japanese group’s founder. He was an early fan of Huawei telecoms gear, figuring any supplier to China’s massive carriers would achieve pricing advantages wrought by massive economies of scale.

一名接近软银创始人孙正义(Masayoshi Son)的人士表示，这种安排并不合孙正义的心意。作为华为电信设备的一名早期粉丝，孙正义认为，中国电信运营商一律体量庞大，任何为它们供应设备的企业都可享受到巨大规模经济带来的定价优势。

Undeterred, Huawei’s sights are firmly set on the global stage. It is building out from handsets and network kit into new business lines, including cloud services, for which it is hiring about 2,000 people this year, while rolling out portable radio masts in congested areas. This month, it is set to expand in the beleaguered PC market with a new laptop, undeterred by slumping sales and the demise of smaller players.

华为毫不气馁，依然坚定地把目光投向全球舞台。除了手机和网络设备业务，华为又在开辟新的业务线，其中云服务业务计划今年招聘大约2000名员工，同时推出在人流密集地区使用的可携带无线基站。华为没有被个人电脑市场销量下滑、一些较小厂商出局的现实吓倒，还寻求在这个当前低迷的市场扩张，并定于本月发布一款新笔记本电脑。

“On the smartphone side, the volumes look great,” says David McQueen, research director at ABI Research, who attended Huawei’s recent analyst meeting in Shenzhen, the fishing village turned tech metropolis across the border from Hong Kong. “They need to bring it up another notch to really catch up with Apple and Samsung in the next generation.”

“在智能手机方面，华为的销量看起来非常大，”ABI研究中心(ABI Research)研究总监戴维?麦奎因(David McQueen)说，他参加了华为近日在深圳举行的分析师会议。“未来一代人时间里，他们需要更上一层楼，才能真正追赶上苹果和三星。”

The handset division, contributing roughly a quarter of revenues, probably lost money last year, on the back of slashed prices and ramped-up marketing spend, reckons Richard Windsor, founder of research consultancy Radio Free Mobile.

研究咨询公司Radio Free Mobile的创始人理查德?温莎(Richard Windsor)推测，由于降价和营销费用增加的缘故，为集团贡献约三分之一营收的华为手机业务去年很可能亏损了。

But beyond the paternalistic platitudes, Huawei has taken a tougher stance. Founder and deputy chairman Ren Zhengfei, in an internal memo published by Reuters, railed against unproductive staff.

但是，除了家长式的老生常谈以外，华为也采取了更严厉的作风。在由路透(Reuters)发布的一份内部备忘录里，华为创始人、副董事长任正非训斥了工作不力的下属。

Speaking at this month’s analyst conference, Shao Yang, president of strategy marketing at the consumer business group, said the company would slim down its handset model portfolio — which currently runs to 22 — and get out of smaller countries where it cannot gain big market share.

华为消费者业务首席战略官邵洋在本月的分析师会议上发表讲话时透露，该公司打算精简手机产品线（目前有22款产品），并撤出其无法夺得大片市场的较小国家。

Some advocate tougher action for the unit, which remains part of Huawei only because an abortive auction in 2008 failed to attract enough bidders. Mr Windsor suggests a tie-up with an internet titan such as Baidu or Tencent to help plug its service gap in China, and increasing the marketing of its lower-priced Honor brand in developed markets.

有些人主张对该部门采取更严厉的做法。其实2008年时华为就打算处置该业务并举行了拍卖，只是因为未能吸引到足够多的投标企业而流拍。温莎建议其与百度(Baidu)或腾讯(Tecent)之类的互联网巨头携手合作，以弥补自身在国内服务领域的短板，同时在发达市场大力营销低端的荣耀(Honor)品牌。

But for now, “Huawei does not have the stomach or the resources to wade through the rivers of red ink that it will take to knock Samsung off its perch,” he wrote in a note to clients.

但就目前而言，“华为既没有意愿也没有资源来解决赤字，也就无法击败三星，”他在给客户的一份报告中写道。

Others point to weaknesses elsewhere in the global footprint, including south-east Asia and India. Winning share in India means spending big, says Neil Shah, director at Counterpoint Technology Market Research, noting that rivals such as Oppo and Vivo are shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars on Bollywood and cricket sponsorships.

还有人指出，在包括东南亚和印度在内的其他地区，华为的海外扩张脚步显得乏力。对位科技市场研究(Counterpoint Technology Market Research)的董事尼尔?沙阿(Neil Shah)指出，要想在印度夺取市场份额就得烧钱，比如说华为的竞争对手OPPO和vivo在宝莱坞和板球赞助方面已经投了数亿美元。

For its part, Huawei concedes there is scope to build a stronger ecosystem. “I think we need to learn from Apple,” says Mr Shao. “The business is like a tree: components are the roots, devices the tree trunks and data, payments, content aggregation the branches.”

华为自己承认还有空间打造更强健的生态系统。邵洋表示：“我认为我们需要向苹果学习。把整个业务当作一棵树：零部件是树根，设备是树干，数据、支付、内容聚合是树枝。”

At the roots, it is manufacturing more sophisticated chips in-house; for the branches there is private cloud storage — where more than 40m photos a day are being uploaded — and mobile payments. It is also looking to beef up video offerings.

在“树根”方面，华为自己正在生产更精密的芯片。在“树枝”方面，华为提供私人云存储服务（每天通过该服务上传的照片超过4000万张）和移动支付服务。此外，华为还在寻求加强视频服务。

Huawei Pay is another catch-up step, tapping into a $5.5tn business that is dominated by Alibaba and Tencent. But for now, it is tiny and can only be used mainly on transport; even the coffee shop on campus accepts only its rivals’ payments.

推出Huawei Pay也是一项追赶的措施，希望打进有5.5万亿美元规模、已被阿里巴巴(Alibaba)和腾讯(Tencent)占据主导地位的移动支付市场。但眼下华为这项业务规模还很小，并且主要在交通工具上使用，即便是华为园区的咖啡店也只接受竞争对手的支付服务。

Similarly, Huawei has nearly 200m consumers using its domestic cloud. But this is far from a profitable business line in China: Alibaba, the internet group that has the biggest market share, lost $5 on every $100 of sales of cloud services last year. Tencent, also chasing a slice of the markets, took on a contract from one provincial government for one fen (Rmb0.01).

目前已有近2亿用户在使用华为在国内的云服务，但在中国这项业务距离实现盈利还很遥远。拿市场份额最大的阿里巴巴来说，去年该公司的云服务每销售出100美元就要亏损5美元。同样想从这个市场分一杯羹的腾讯曾以1分钱价格拿下一个地方政府的订单。

But all the talk about the cloud, radio masts and enterprise is at the heart of the tensions at Huawei, says Mr Shah. A common theme at their investor days is that discussions about smartphones are confined to only 2-3 per cent of the time.

不过，沙阿表示，在华为内部，所有这些有关云服务、无线基站及企业业务的讨论是引发紧张的核心因素。在投资者日，有关智能手机的讨论向来只能占2%到3%的时间。

“This shows the rotating CEOs never see consumer as a huge part of the business,” he says. “There’s some mismatch between what the consumer business is trying to drive fast and what the overall leadership team has focused on.”

沙阿表示：“这表明历任轮值CEO从来不把消费者业务看作整体业务中的一个重头戏。消费者业务部门试图快速取得进展，他们的目标与上面的领导团队所关注的东西并不对应。”

Current chief executive Eric Xu certainly shows little love for the consumer business. In another business contradiction that typifies the dichotomies within Huawei, he abruptly dismissed the smartwatch in a Gerald Ratner moment — undeterred that he led a company that made them.

目前轮值的首席执行官徐直军(Eric Xu)就显得对消费者业务无感。他曾突兀地表现得不把智能手表放在眼里，一点不考虑他所领导的公司自己在生产这类产品，简直就是杰拉尔德?拉特纳(Gerald Ratner，是一位曾因嘲笑自己企业的产品而导致企业业务一蹶不振的首席执行官——译者注)化身，这是在公司业务上的又一个矛盾行为，体现了华为内部的分歧。

“I’m not a man who wears watches,” he said.” And I’ve never been optimistic about this market.”

当时他说：“我这人不戴表，也从不看好这个市场。”