Dubai, UAE, November 13, 2018:  King Khalid Responsible Competitiveness (RC) Award has honored Huawei, a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices, with the first place prize of the prestigious King Khalid Responsible Competitiveness Award. This announcement was made during the illustrious annual Award Gala which took place on 12th November at Al Faisaliah Hotel in Riyadh. During the event, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman recognized Huawei for its excellent sustainability practices and responsible competitiveness leadership, as well as its exceptional management capabilities and innovative social and environmental initiatives. 

Launched in 2008, the King Khalid Responsible Competitiveness Award is the first and only award focused on responsible competitiveness and corporate responsibility in the Kingdom, and Huawei is the first ICT company to win first place in the award’s history. As digital transformation sweeps across the globe, ICT technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, Cloud and more will unlock new values of growth and innovation and uplift societies and organizations to great heights of prosperity. In this context, the King Khalid Responsible Competitiveness Award recognized Huawei for its transformative impact in driving forward the Kingdom’s ICT sector as a whole in line with the government’s digitization goals, National Transformation Program and Vision 2030. In particular, Huawei was celebrated for deploying their most advanced technologies, high quality product and secured networks in the Kingdom, empowering local partners, taking the ICT talent pool to the next stage of creativity and innovation, and building the ICT ecosystem to achieve the digital kingdom economy targets.

Accepting the award, Charles Yang, President of Huawei Middle East, stated: “We are deeply humbled to receive such recognition from Saudi Arabia’s leadership. In the Kingdom, Huawei is determined to bring digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world. The improvement is endless on the road to providing customers with high quality products and services. Today's award is a milestone for us to continue to surpass ourselves. We will continue to play an active role in driving Saudi Arabia’s ICT sector development and grow together with our local partners, openly collaborating to build an ever deeper pool of ICT talent empowered to enable the industry digital transformation.”

Huawei established its subsidiary in the Kingdom in 2002. In the past 17 years, under the core values of customer-centricity, Huawei has maintained the quality goal of 'becoming a high-quality synonym for ICT industry' and continues to bring innovative information and communication technology (ICT) solutions and products to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, actively promote the development of the Saudi ICT industry and the national digital transformation, develop Saudi ICT talents, and support the goals  of Saudi National Transformation Plan 2020 and 2030 vision.

Huawei has established strategic partnerships with Saudi Arabia's local operators to lead the construction of telecommunication networks, serving more than two-thirds of Saudi population, ranking No.2 in smartphone market share*, enterprise ICT solution are serving 14 government ministries. Huawei actively builds an ecosystem for nurturing future local ICT talents, and launches STEP (Saudi Talent Enablement Program) which combines 4 annual programs including Seed For the Future, ICT Skills Competition, Future Leader Internship Program as well as Huawei ICT Academies which are aiming to train outstanding Saudi ICT talents. To date, more than 10,000 people have benefited from Huawei local training programs.