Press release

PRESS RELEASE

Wednesday September 29th 2010 

Telecommunications leads the way in Corporate Innovation    

The Economist’s Innovation Awards recognise Huawei in 2010.
 
Following in the footsteps of previous innovative corporate leaders Reckitt Benckiser, Nokia and Procter and Gamble, The Economist today announced the 2010 winner of its prestigious Corporate Use of Innovation Award: Huawei, China’s largest maker of telecoms equipment.

The award will be presented at a ceremony to be held at the Science Museum in London on 21st October 2010. Now in their ninth year, the Awards have celebrated the corporate use of innovation since 2007 with an award that recognises large companies able to create particularly innovative environments and quickly respond to market trends.

Founded in 1988, Huawei [add live link to winner’s page] has risen to become one of the world’s largest makers of telecommunications equipment. The Chinese firm’s products and solutions are deployed in over 100 countries, are used by 45 of the top 50 global telecoms operators, and serve one-third of the world’s population. 46% of Huawei’s 95,000 staff are engaged in R&D activities. Huawei is respected for the quality and innovation of its products: it topped the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s 2008 rankings for international patent applications, and was placed second in the 2009 rankings.

Commenting on the award decision, Tom Standage, Digital Editor at The Economist said, “Huawei has been a pioneer in areas such as ‘remote radio head’ technology, which reduces the size and energy consumption of mobile base-stations; reconfigurable base-stations, the features of which are defined by software rather than hardware; and LTE, the emerging standard for fourth-generation (4G) wireless networks. More than any other, Huawei is the firm that is overturning the widely held preconception that Chinese companies are merely imitators rather than innovators.”

The Awards ceremony will be followed by the Innovation Summit on October 22nd, where big themes in the field of innovation will be discussed and explored. Follow us on Twitter @Economist_Innov and using the hashtag #ECIS10.

For further information on the awards and tables for purchase: www.economistinnovation.com

Press enquiries:
For enquiries relating to The Economist’s Innovation Awards, please contact

Sarah Caddy , +44 (0)207 467 5820
e-mail: sarah@gongcommunications.com  

Anna-Louise Maloney, +44 (0)20 7576 8378
e-mail: anna-louisemaloney@economist.com

-ENDS-

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