Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei is apparently a huge fan of Apple products.
Zhengfei, whose company is competing with rival Apple Inc. in the tech market, was recently photographed in an airport security line carrying an iPad.
In the image that has become widely shared on Chinese social media, an airport security officer is busy inspecting the Huawei CEO’s iPad. It is worth noting that the Chinese tech firm has its own line of modern tablets called MediaPads which run the Android operating system.
According to the South China Morning Post, Zhengfei has openly spoken about his family’s affinity to Apple products.
“My children prefer Apple products over Huawei’s,” Zhengfei was quoted as saying earlier this year.
“Does it mean that they don’t love Huawei? Of course not… iPhone has a good ecosystem and when my family are abroad, I still buy them iPhones, so one can’t narrowly think love for Huawei should mean loving Huawei phones.”
When Zhengfei’s daughter, and Huawei’s CFO, Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada last year, she was carrying an iPhone, an iPad and a MacBook.
“Apple is the world’s leading company,” Ren Zhengfei told Bloomberg. “If there was no Apple, there would be no mobile internet. If there was no Apple to help show us the world, we would not see the beauty of this world. Apple is my teacher – it’s advancing in front of us. As a student, why should I oppose my teacher? I would never do that.”
While Zhengfei’s candidness might be admirable, embracing Apple is not really promoted nor tolerated within the company itself.
Earlier this year, two Huawei employees were demoted for tweeting from iPhones. Their salaries were also reduced.
Featured Image via Wikimedia / cellanr (CC BY-SA 2.0) (Left) and Weibo (Right)
