New Economy Forum

No Pay, No Gain: Huawei Outspends Apple on R&D for a 5G Edge

  • Chinese telecom giant’s R&D budget hit $15.3 billion in 2018
  • Huawei’s still in the cross-hairs of the Trump administration

Employees work on the assembly line of a Huawei Technologies Co. mobile phone plant in Dongguan, China, on Jan. 15.

Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
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Huawei Technologies Co. wants to dominate the next generation of wireless technology and it’s investing in that goal at a pace few companies can match.

The world’s leading maker of networking equipment spent $15.3 billion on research last year. That’s more than double the amount it shelled out roughly five years ago -- a pace surpassed by only Amazon.com Inc. among the world’s 10 biggest spenders on R&D.