­It’s Just Another Smartphone Factory™

In a very typical stereotype, the campus in Shenzhen for Huawei has around 30,000 employees over 2.5 square kilometers, with some of them located in housing nearby within the local area. Perhaps quite interesting is that there are Foxconn offices across road, to the extent that at one T-junction there was a sign for left saying ‘Foxconn’ and a sign for the right saying ‘Huawei’. It has been noted that Foxconn has manufactured products for Huawei before, and thus I can imagine being so close to each other has its own benefits.

Make sure you make the right turn

Needless to say, a campus this size is very difficult to ‘tour’ around, especially as we had special presentations and meetings with the President of Huawei’s watch division discussing the Huawei Watch, lunch with the Director of Global Relations as well as a tour of the testing facilities during the short time there.

The standard rules apply for a company of this nature – there are tall corporate buildings with product areas and descriptive walkthroughs of what the company does, with professional meeting rooms that have in-house catering, whereas the technical offices and data center management are generic looking concrete places that are mostly no-go areas for media visits. This dichotomy between ‘on-show corporate’ and ‘the general workforce’ is mirrored in companies around the world, to the extent that we also had lunch in a special canteen for guests with a background band as you entered.

Musical accompaniment in the executive dining hall reception

During lunch we ate and talked with the Director for Public Relations, rather than eating in the casual employee canteen and experiencing the potential mêlée that comes with that. However, the campus is designed with an element of beauty in mind, under the premise that the CEO has a degree in architecture, and wanted the campus to reflect an element of style rather than be another box hidden in a corporate mountain. It was at this point that it was suggested by Andrei that the ultimate tech press clickbait article would be ‘An In-Depth Look at Huawei’s Architecture’ and it being about the buildings and landscapes of the campus, rather than insights into the company's silicon or devices.

Part of the tour was also to one of the smartphone testing laboratories, although we were not allowed to take images inside of the facilities. If any of our readers have seen our articles in the past about this (such as ASUS), the usual array of drop tests, twisting tests, insertion, vibration, high temperature, low temperature, humidity cycles and battery presses were also present on site, although RF testing is performed on a different campus than the one we visited. So when this page started with ‘It’s Just Another Smartphone Factory’, the reality is that almost all of them are like this, as they all need to perform similar tests dictated international and industry standards. The key here is individualization - most of the key elements to what a company does with their product is in the hardware design stage or software, rather than product testing, unless water/dust resistance is a key factor, or additional MIL-SPEC (military standard) is needed. Even then, for MIL-SPEC, one would assume that the testing would be outsourced if it only applied to a few devices, rather than purchasing all the equipment.

Why We Went It’s Just Another Smartphone Manufacturer™
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  • s.yu - Tuesday, December 8, 2015 - link

    No. Apple does use the newest, most advanced technology. Huawei doesn't upgrade unless it has to, and focuses on making old tech look like new to the consumer.

    Apple's started using NVMe, Huawei's still on eMMC. Look at that insane A9X(Yes I know it's tablet only), look at that puny Kirin950. Huawei's got the head start, of a month or two, but the Kirin will turn out the weakest of the next generation's flagship SoCs.

    Huawei only implemented Force Touch after Apple used it in the Watch(and they still haven't shipped it), but they've gotten the domestic ultra-nationalist fanboys to believe that Huawei came up with it first. Despicable.
  • mayankleoboy1 - Monday, December 7, 2015 - link

    Since only samsung has their own fabs, here is a suggestion:

    Huawei buy all the fab capacity of TSMC using its own funds and that of the Chinese Government ? Apple will go to Samsung, which they are loathe to do. And Intel wont fab anything for
    Apple. So effectively, Apple will be able to produce only 10%-50% of their phones.
  • Goyim - Monday, December 7, 2015 - link

    Proper Pronunciation.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGAqvpYLiGw
  • garbagedisposal - Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - link

    Pronunciation in that video is wrong, see s.yu's comment above
  • Ethos Evoss - Friday, December 11, 2015 - link

    Don't understand anandatech in final words why u bringing usa into case?!?
    And problems with certifications or licences in USA..
    Anandatech are you so naive or you just pretending to be stupid?
    What you think why chinese companies has problems in USA?
    Because it is on purpose and because USA is scared chinas business like devil hy water..
    Anamdatech do you even know how politics works in ANY sphere of busines or facilities or governments?
    Everything is just on purpose to protect own busines.. (country)
    If would be allowed so easily hinese brands into USA, USA busines woud be DEVOURED by flipping fingers..
    And am telling you without China USA electronic brands wouldn't exist. as it is now..
    And in first you have to take in accout it isn't about brands which is better or which is on higher level because they are all on the same level MAIN reason is ADVERTISE and POPULARITY
    USA (bcos acoodring you it is don't know why main country of interest) will BAN prohibite any advertising of chinese brands in its country THAT is the main reason.. Bcos is scared
    Like you said you have bunch of kiddos readers which blabling about apple how it is best just bcos advertise allowed across the globe. BUT most of these poor peope doesn't own it..
    Ppl complainig about 4G not working in USA.. why it is perfectly working in rest of the world? BECAUSE USA om purpose won't allow them certification use their bands..
    And you just decide to strike in Huawei they are like ; WTF is this.. they has no idea and you e pecting they gonna tell you everything.. And you wondering why so many secrets..
    I tell you what, do same tour into Apple and demand all secrets wht they got I am really curious wht they would tell you
    PEACE!

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