Huawei Investment & Holding

RANK49

Telecommunications giant Huawei leapt from 72nd to 49th place on this year’s Global 500 ranking, breaking into the top 50 for the first time. Huawei’s net profit rose 5.6% in 2019, and revenue grew a further 13.1% year-on-year in the first half of 2020, despite the company’s persistent geopolitical entanglements. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson dropped Huawei as a supplier for the U.K.’s 5G network in July 2020, and the company is all but shut out of the U.S. market, where it is the subject of ongoing government sanctions over national security concerns. Huawei remains the second-biggest smartphone seller in the world by volume, thanks in large part to its growing dominance in China, where it had a 41% market share in the first quarter of 2020.