Huawei Marine Networks, a joint venture invested by Huawei Technologies and Global Marine Systems Limited, has started operation following an unveiling ceremony held in Tianjin.

Huawei and Global Marine signed an agreement on December 11, 2007 to set up the joint venture and company has already completed relevant registration and examination and approval procedures. Headquartered in Tianjin, the new company will establish R&D centers and manufacturing bases in Beijing, Shenzhen and the United Kingdom. Guo Ping, chief strategy officer of Huawei, will be chairman of Huawei Marine Networks and Ian Douglas, director of Global Marine, is appointed CEO of the company.

Huawei says that the reason for setting up the new joint venture is because of the great demands and the market potential of the submarine cable market in the future. According to the company's estimation of the market, the global market scale of submarine cable will be about USD2 billion annually in the next five years.

Chairman of Huawei Marine Networks Guo says the submarine cable market has been dominated by major international manufacturers for a long time, so the founding of Huawei Marine Networks is important for more diversification within the industry. Over recent years, Huawei has successfully completed submarine cable system capacity expansion projects for CAT, Hibernia, Med Nautilus and Level 3. Bringing together both parent companies' advantages in this sector, Huawei Marine Networks will provide end-to-end submarine cable solutions and offer a new choice to submarine cable users.