Ren Zhengfei ordered the ban on "far ahead"? Yu Chengdong responded

Recently, media reports stated that Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei imposed a ban on Huawei Vice Chairman Yu Chengdong within Huawei, requiring a fine of 10,000 for every time he mentioned "far ahead". As soon as the news came out, the topic became a hot topic on Weibo. In this regard, Anhui Daily Yuan News asked Yu Chengdong for confirmation, and he replied on WeChat that it was a rumor .

Although Yu Chengdong has refuted the above-mentioned news, the topic of Huawei's far lead is still attracting attention. The Paper has previously reported that Huawei is trying to turn Yu Chengdong’s catchphrase “far ahead” into its own trademark. Tianyancha shows that the "Far Ahead" trademark applied for registration by Huawei is internationally classified as transportation means and scientific instruments. The current trademark status is awaiting substantive review. The current trademark status is "Rejected, Not Acceptable".

The dictionary definition of "far ahead" is, far ahead, from Luo Laiyong's "The World Spread Before Their Eyes".

Source: Internet

But when it comes to Huawei, it first appeared at the Huawei Mate40 series launch conference on October 22, 2020. When Yu Chengdong introduced the technical advantages of the new mobile phone at the press conference, he used the word "far ahead" many times. According to statistics, during the entire press conference, Yu Chengdong mentioned "far ahead" 14 times, including introductions to processors, screens, batteries, charging, cameras, sound quality, etc.

Subsequently, the word quickly fermented with the enthusiasm of netizens and became a popular Internet meme. Interpretations of the word on the Internet range from using it to praise Huawei’s innovation and technological strength to making fun of Yu Chengdong’s accent and exaggerated expression style. Over time, whenever Huawei or Yu Chengdong is mentioned, everyone will think of the word "far ahead" and gradually regard it as synonymous with Huawei.

Later, at the Huawei Pollen Annual Conference in December 2023, Yu Chengdong responded to the "far ahead" that had been repeatedly ridiculed by netizens, saying that everyone had cut out the "far ahead" that he had said at press conferences in the past ten years. We made up a joke together, but we didn’t actually say that much. Only when Huawei truly achieves a significant advantage in a certain field, that is, "when it is far ahead," will he say that it is "far ahead in this field."

He also emphasized that achieving far-reaching leadership is not easy. Behind every leader is the result of R&D innovation, strong technological investment and continuous efforts. On March 29, Huawei released its 2023 annual report. The report mentioned that Huawei's overall operations in 2023 were in line with expectations, achieving sales revenue of 704.2 billion yuan and net profit of 87 billion yuan. In terms of R&D, Huawei's R&D investment in 2023 will reach 164.7 billion yuan, accounting for 23.4% of its annual revenue. The cumulative R&D expenses invested in the past 10 years have exceeded 1.11 trillion yuan.

Relevant data shows that in the ranking of global companies' disclosed R&D investment amounts in 2023, Huawei is the only Chinese company to enter the top five, and the others are all from the United States. This amount of investment even far exceeds the total R&D investment of more than 130 billion yuan by 1,083 companies on the GEM of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in the same year. On this point alone, Huawei has indeed "beat" a number of leading companies with its strength.

Ten years of painstaking research and development have been condensed into the “1.11 trillion yuan” in the report, which in the end is roughly equal to “way ahead.” I think this is the real reason why Huawei is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Not to mention other series of "plus points" such as recruiting outstanding talents from around the world and increasing dividends to shareholding employees.

Source: Huawei official website

As Huawei's vice chairman and CEO of consumer business, Yu Chengdong has been committed to promoting the development of Huawei's consumer business and maintaining a leading position in market competition. Similarly, the speeches of Huawei's key figures often represent Huawei's image. Yu Chengdong's denial is also an important message for Huawei and its supporters, showing that Huawei's leading position in technology and market is not limited.

In fact, the statement that "Huawei is far ahead" in recent years is not groundless. As the world's leading communications equipment manufacturer, Huawei has always been committed to technological innovation and product quality. In the past few years, Huawei has demonstrated strong technical strength and innovation capabilities in various fields, from mobile phones to 5G, from chips to cloud computing, and to the innovation of intelligent driving systems.

Let’s take its latest annual report for 2023 as an example. Compared with the increase in revenue and profit, what is really exciting in the report is the three outstanding performances - the terminal business returned to double-digit growth, the smart car business revenue increased significantly, and the construction of Hongmeng's native application ecosystem was fully launched.

In 2023, Huawei's smart car business segment's revenue will increase significantly, becoming Huawei's fastest growing business segment. Especially for the Xinwenjie M7, a relatively big advantage is that it coincides with the launch of the Mate60 and it is hot before it is released, so there is no need for too much publicity and momentum. Therefore, Huawei has given top publicity resources to the Xinwenjie M7.

Based on the excellent performance of the smart car segment, Huawei announced that "after several years of intense investment, it has built leading competitiveness in smart driving, smart cockpits, and smart car control, and has now reached the full delivery stage."

The terminal business recovered with the launch of the Mate60 series last year and returned to double-digit growth. Since May 2019, Huawei's terminal business, which has been most affected by the continued technical sanctions of the United States, has declined sharply. Until an important turning point occurred - Huawei Mate60 was quietly launched, the 5G communication function was powerful, and the Kirin 9000S chip returned, which once again attracted unprecedented attention. Now the terminal business is finally waiting for spring to bloom.

Huawei Hongmeng is ushering in its first year, and the construction of the Hongmeng native application ecosystem has been fully launched. Huawei hopes that Hongmeng OS can truly connect everything, rather than replace Android. With the construction of Hongmeng's native application ecosystem, Huawei's "Internet of Everything" has taken a big step forward.

Of course, in addition to the three major highlights mentioned above, the report also shows that in 2023, Huawei's ICT infrastructure business will achieve sales revenue of 362 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.3%; the cloud computing business will achieve sales revenue of 55.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.9 %; the digital energy business achieved sales revenue of 52.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.5% .

At this point, after experiencing various darkest moments, Huawei has finally passed the most difficult moment of its operations and ushered in a new life. In this regard, we should congratulate and admire the breakthroughs of local technology companies, and look forward to their future performance.

It is worth noting that today's "far ahead" is not just an "exclusive word" for Huawei. Xiaomi Group Chairman Lei Jun also shouted at the recent Xiaomi SU7 launch conference that "Xiaomi cars are far ahead in battery life." slogan.

At the Xiaomi SU7 launch conference on the evening of March 28, Lei Jun said when introducing the battery life that Xiaomi SU7 has a starting range of 700 kilometers, which is enough to drive on the highway for more than 4 hours. Finally, he proudly said: "In four-wheel drive, the battery life of Xiaomi SU7 is far ahead!" When hearing this statement, the audience cheered at the press conference. Lei Jun explained with a smile: "Okay, one generation ahead! I think Lao Yu ( "Hua Yu Chengdong has successfully implanted 'far ahead' into each of our minds."

This move made many people lament that the term "far ahead" has become deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. From Huawei and Xiaomi, and perhaps more companies will call it out in the future, what is really far ahead is not the word itself, but the phenomenon behind it that "domestic technological power is getting stronger." Isn’t this just a change of confidence in the self-certification of the products and technical strength of technology companies!

It has to be said that the word "way ahead" is occasionally shouted once or twice, which to a certain extent does boost the morale of technology company teams, and also allows the outside world to have a deeper understanding of the company's technology and innovation. However, more than 5,000 years of cultural inheritance have cultivated the Chinese people's low-key, pragmatic and self-cultivation to be prepared for danger in times of peace. We might as well continue to remain humble and accumulate more knowledge.