Despite this diversification of markets, the company's workforce is concentrated in its country of origin in 2012, almost 80 percent of its 150 000 employees were in china, while the breakdown for the rest was the following: 7.5 percent in other Asian countries, 4.9 percent in Europe, 2.9 percent in South America, 2.8 percent in Africa, 1.7 percent in North America, and 0.2 percent in Oceania 6. Huawei, after existing just a little more than a quarter century, in 2013 saw its income reach 38.9 billion dollars worldwide, with the following breakdown per region: china, 35 percent Europe, middle east, and Africa, 35 percent Asia Pacific, 16 percent, and the Americas, 14 percent 5. This article seeks to examine a specific case to broaden this study, contributing a level of greater precision about the various characteristics of the impact of globalization on products and services in Mexico. This research is part of a study of the current forms of organization and production of multinational corporations in Mexico ( Carrillo, 2013), with the purpose of discovering and understanding the way in which such companies transfer specific capabilities under new patterns of internationalization ( Dunning, 2006 Dicken, 1992).
Huawei operates globally from its headquarters in Shenzhen 3, serving various digital economy markets, ranging from infrastructure for carriers 4, terminal equipment, creation of solutions for businesses, and R&D (research and development) that supports the company's innovations.
Founded in 1987, Huawei plays a leading role in its industry 2. The Chinese corporation Huawei is a main player in this new phase of the complexity of companies' internationalization strategies. These core capabilities in the company's local structure will be addressed below. This description serves as a framework to explain two core structural capabilities of the firm in Mexico: assembly operations and research and development. This article 1 describes Huawei's internationalization strategy, which is based on its technological and adaptive capacities, which are oriented toward local mass telecommunications markets. The globalization of markets and production in recent decades is the result of the diversity of business trajectories in companies' internationalization processes this has brought about new strategies for companies and organizations, particularly those that have quickly leaped over the various phases of internationalization and thus are called “born global” firms ( Dunning and Lundan, 2008 Madsen and Servais, 1997 Knight and Cavusgil, 1996). Palabras clave: internacionalización, telecomunicaciones, customización, Huawei, México. En este artículo, mediante información recabada por entrevistas y visitas que se llevaron a cabo durante 2014, se desarrolla una descripción sintetizada de la estrategia de internacionalización de Huawei y se explora la organización del ensamblado y la logística, así como de la customización y la innovación.
El inicio de operaciones de esta compañía en México tuvo lugar sólo 14 años después de haber sido fundada en su país y representó un paso más en su estrategia inicial de crecer en economías emergentes. La empresa multinacional de origen chino Huawei representa un caso de globalización que difiere de los patrones clásicos de internacionalización. Keywords: internationalization, telecommunications, customization, Huawei, Mexico.
This article, using information gathered from interviews and observations that took place during 2014, outlines a general description of Huawei's internationalization strategy, and examines its assembly and logistical operations, as well as its processes of customization and innovation. It began operations in Mexico only 14 years after its founding in china this represented one more step in its initial strategy of expanding into emerging economies. Huawei, a multinational company from china, represents a form of globalization that differs from classical internationalization patterns.