The China-based tech-giant is suffering from a severe drop in sales that has made Huawei to turn to pig farming and other ventures outside phone making like coal mining. Huawei’s problems started in January 2019 when the US government accused the phone making company of spying on behalf of the Chinese government. Things slowly went downhill from there.
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The US then placed sanctions on the Chinese company where it was stopped from accessing components from US companies for the manufacture of its smartphones. Huawei has now been limited to making 4G models as it lacks US government permission to import components for 5G models.
Huawei to turn to pig farming with AI technology
It is now seeking alternatives as phone sales have become an unreliable source of revenue for the company which has forced Huawei to turn to pig farming where it is developing AI technology for pig farmers to enable them to detect diseases and track pigs.
In addition, the telecoms giant has developed facial recognition technology that can identify individual pigs while other technology monitors their weight, diet and exercise. It has however faced criticism for its facial recognition technology that it was accused of using to spy for African governments. In 2019 the Wall Street Journal revealed that this technology was used by the Uganda government to spy on political opponents.
The Huawei spokesman said, “The pig farming is yet another example of how we try to revitalize some traditional industries with ICT (Information and Communications Technology) technologies to create more value for the industries in the 5G era.”
Even as the company has started trying out other ventures, it says smartphone sales are expected to fall by 60% this year much worse than the 42% drop in the last quarter of 2020 as it struggled with a limited supply of microchips due to the sanctions.
The sanctions are not the only reason the company’s sales have suffered so badly, it has also been locked out of the development of 5G in a number of countries like the UK due to fears of national security.
As sales force Huawei to turn to pig farming, the company is also exploring coal mining, manufacture of consumer products like televisions, computers and tablets. It says the coal mining project would incorporate technology that makes mining safer for workers and also reducing the number of workers needed.