“在智能手机方面，华为的销量看起来非常大，”ABI研究中心(ABI Research)研究总监(David McQueen)说，他参加了华为近日在深圳举行的分析师会议。“未来一代人时间里，他们需要更上一层楼，才能真正追赶上苹果和三星。”
The handset division, contributing roughly a quarter of revenues, probably lost money last year, on the back of slashed prices and ramped-up marketing spend, reckons Richard Windsor, founder of research consultancy Radio Free Mobile.
研究咨询公司Radio Free Mobile的创始人Richard Windsor推测，由于降价和营销费用增加的缘故，为集团贡献约三分之一营收的华为手机业务去年很可能亏损了。
But beyond the paternalistic platitudes, Huawei has taken a tougher stance. Founder and deputy chairman , in an internal memo published by Reuters, railed against unproductive staff.
但是，除了家长式的老生常谈以外，华为也采取了更严厉的作风。在由路透(Reuters)发布的一份内部备忘录里，华为创始人、副董事长训斥了工作不力的下属。
Speaking at this month’s analyst conference, Shao Yang, president of strategy marketing at the consumer business group, said the company would slim down its handset model portfolio — which currently runs to 22 — and get out of smaller countries where it cannot gain big market share.
华为消费者业务首席战略官邵洋在本月的分析师会议上发表讲话时透露，该公司打算精简手机产品线(目前有22款产品)，并撤出其无法夺得大片市场的较小国家。
Some advocate tougher action for the unit, which remains part of Huawei only because an abortive auction in 2008 failed to attract enough bidders. Mr Windsor suggests a tie-up with an internet titan such as Baidu or Tencent to help plug its service gap in China, and increasing the marketing of its lower-priced Honor brand in developed markets.
有些人主张对该部门采取更严厉的做法。其实2008年时华为就打算处置该业务并举行了拍卖，只是因为未能吸引到足够多的投标企业而流拍。温莎建议其与百度(Baidu)或腾讯(Tecent)之类的互联网巨头携手合作，以弥补自身在国内服务领域的短板，同时在发达市场大力营销低端的荣耀(Honor)品牌。
But for now, “Huawei does not have the stomach or the resources to wade through the rivers of red ink that it will take to knock Samsung off its perch,” he wrote in a note to clients.
但就目前而言，“华为既没有意愿也没有资源来解决赤字，也就无法击败三星，”他在给客户的一份报告中写道。
Others point to weaknesses elsewhere in the global footprint, including south-east Asia and India. Winning share in India means spending big, says Neil Shah, director at Counterpoint Technology Market Research, noting that rivals such as Oppo and Vivo are shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars on Bollywood and cricket sponsorships.
还有人指出，在包括东南亚和印度在内的其他地区，华为的海外扩张脚步显得乏力。对位科技市场研究(Counterpoint Technology Market Research)的董事(Neil Shah)指出，要想在印度夺取市场份额就得烧钱，比如说华为的竞争对手OPPO和vivo在宝莱坞和板球赞助方面已经投了数亿美元。
For its part, Huawei concedes there is scope to build a stronger ecosystem. “I think we need to learn from Apple,” says Mr Shao. “The business is like a tree: components are the roots, devices the tree trunks and data, payments, content aggregation the branches.”
华为自己承认还有空间打造更强健的生态系统。Mr Shao表示：“我认为我们需要向苹果学习。把整个业务当作一棵树：零部件是树根，设备是树干，数据、支付、内容聚合是树枝。”
At the roots, it is manufacturing more sophisticated chips in-house; for the branches there is private cloud storage — where more than 40m photos a day are being uploaded — and mobile payments. It is also looking to beef up video offerings.
在“树根”方面，华为自己正在生产更精密的芯片。在“树枝”方面，华为提供私人云存储服务(每天通过该服务上传的照片超过4000万张)和移动支付服务。此外，华为还在寻求加强视频服务。
Huawei Pay is another catch-up step, tapping into a $5.5tn business that is dominated by Alibaba and Tencent. But for now, it is tiny and can only be used mainly on transport; even the coffee shop on campus accepts only its rivals’ payments.
推出Huawei Pay也是一项追赶的措施，希望打进有5.5万亿美元规模、已被阿里巴巴(Alibaba)和腾讯(Tencent)占据主导地位的移动支付市场。但眼下华为这项业务规模还很小，并且主要在交通工具上使用，即便是华为园区的咖啡店也只接受竞争对手的支付服务。
Similarly, Huawei has nearly 200m consumers using its domestic cloud. But this is far from a profitable business line in China: Alibaba, the internet group that has the biggest market share, lost $5 on every $100 of sales of cloud services last year. Tencent, also chasing a slice of the markets, took on a contract from one provincial government for one fen (Rmb0.01).
目前已有近2亿用户在使用华为在国内的云服务，但在中国这项业务距离实现盈利还很遥远。拿市场份额最大的阿里巴巴来说，去年该公司的云服务每销售出100美元就要亏损5美元。同样想从这个市场分一杯羹的腾讯曾以1分钱价格拿下一个地方政府的订单。
But all the talk about the cloud, radio masts and enterprise is at the heart of the tensions at Huawei, says Mr Shah. A common theme at their investor days is that discussions about smartphones are confined to only 2-3 per cent of the time.
不过，沙阿表示，在华为内部，所有这些有关云服务、无线基站及企业业务的讨论是引发紧张的核心因素。在投资者日，有关智能手机的讨论向来只能占2%到3%的时间。
“This shows the rotating CEOs never see consumer as a huge part of the business,” he says. “There’s some mismatch between what the consumer business is trying to drive fast and what the overall leadership team has focused on.”
沙阿表示：“这表明历任轮值CEO从来不把消费者业务看作整体业务中的一个重头戏。消费者业务部门试图快速取得进展，他们的目标与上面的领导团队所关注的东西并不对应。”
