Supply Chain Analysis of Huawei Mobile Phones

Abstract

Since Apple's first iPhone in 2007, the smartphone industry has boomed, with Apple, Samsung, and Huawei at the forefront. In 2019, 1.371 billion smartphones were shipped globally, with the top 5 vendors accounting for 70.56%. In China, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo are major players. The industry's core competitiveness lies in product development, marketing, and supply chain management. Huawei, a leading global company based in China, excels globally but faces supply chain and inventory challenges. Its global supply chain, with suppliers worldwide, is complex. Rapid product changes and diverse product lines make demand forecasting hard. To counter these, Huawei uses advanced supply chain theories and tech for digitization, transparency, and responsiveness. As a key player in the smartphone supply chain, Huawei orders based on customer demand, plans production, and negotiates with suppliers for quality components. This paper analyzes domestic and foreign inventory management, examines Huawei P40's inventory, and offers improvements. Huawei's P40 faces demand-supply uncertainty, inventory control, rational management, liquidity, and supply chain coordination. Huawei's customer-centered supply chain uses advanced tech to ensure efficient product design-to-delivery, aiming for a stable and reliable system. It has long-term supplier partnerships and uses DAP for better communication and resource sharing. Through the S&OP mechanism, Huawei balances resources across departments for quick market response. Market research led to an innovative triple-fold screen phone's success. For inventory, Huawei uses ABC classification, VMI, and JIT, sharing info and analyzing demand to cut inventory costs and risks. In summary, Huawei's supply chain management, covering supplier, S&OP, and inventory, shows great results with advanced methods.