Huawei divided the business in the CIS into two parts

The CEO of Huawei Enterprise in the Eurasia region, Xiao Haijun, terminated his contract and left Russia. According to one of the interlocutors, he was sent to Switzerland and so far no one has been appointed to replace him. The company’s Russian staff will be reduced to the required level, sources told Vedomosti.

The situation with the supply of equipment for Russian corporate customers will become clearer with the beginning of the new fiscal year, only in February-March 2023.

Andrey Zeltyn, Senior Lecturer at the HSE School of Oriental Studies, believes the company chose Bahrain for several reasons: virtually no tax for foreign companies, no tax on individuals, zero corporate income tax, contributions social for foreigners does not exceed 3%, and VAT fluctuates at a level of 5 to 10%.

Splitting the business into two parts is a logical decision for Huawei, agreed Mikhail Burmistrov, head of Infoline Analytics. Russia and Belarus are countries with a high level of sanctions risks, whose procedure for concluding transactions will differ from the CIS countries.

In September, Huawei moved some of its employees from Russia to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. With the help of the relocation, the company wanted to avoid secondary penalties and organize deliveries via parallel imports.

In June, Huawei announced the closure of official stores in Russia. Later it became known about the shortage of spare parts for Huawei smartphones.

In July, the company terminated the contracts of half of its freelancers in Russia. A significant part of the workforce is still on vacation and the company is no longer hiring new employees.