On February 6th, Huawei released the "Dongmi No. 1" document internally, announcing the annual dividend plan for 2023: ESOP dividends per share are 1.5 CNY. Since Huawei is a privately-owned company 100% owned by its employees, all employees holding Huawei stocks are eligible for dividends.
Huawei's total share capital is currently about 51.3 billion shares. Based on an estimated 142,315 people participating in the dividend by the end of 2022, this dividend payment would require the company to pay 513.9 billion * 1.5 = 770.85 billion CNY to its employees.
Based on the calculation of 142,315 employees, each person can receive nearly 550,000 CNY on average, which is enviable to others, and this news has also sparked numerous media reports.
However, recently, there were seemingly Huawei employees on Zhihu who complained about this. They said, "People outside don't understand, they're praising it everywhere, but inside the forum, everyone's cursing it."
This Zhihu user claimed that with the booming sales of the Mate60 series in the second half of 2023, as well as the launch of the nova series new phones with high profit margins, employees had high expectations for this year's dividend data. However, the final dividend per share for 2023 was only 1.5 CNY, the lowest in nearly three years, even lower than the most difficult year after sanctions in 2021, which had a dividend of 1.58 CNY per share.
Furthermore, there is a huge income gap within Huawei, with an average of 360,000 shares per person. The dividend data of 550,000 CNY is meaningless. Each level in Huawei has a limit on the number of shares allocated, and employees are usually allocated shares for the first time around three years after joining, based on different performance levels, typically between 20,000 to 60,000 shares at once.
New employees who have been with the company for less than three years, unless they are outstanding, find it difficult to get shares. Most employees around three years of tenure don't have stocks.
To get the average of 360,000 shares, you basically need to be at level 18 (campus recruitment bachelor's/master's degree levels 13-15, PhD level 16), and many employees at level 17 don't even have 300,000 shares. Generally, it takes about 8 years for employees to reach level 17, and level 18 is a threshold, either becoming an expert, project manager, or leader.
Assuming employees are allocated shares for the first time after three years of employment, and calculating based on 50,000 shares allocated per year, it would take about 10 years for employees to receive 350,000 shares.
This means that the main force employees at levels 15-17 cannot even reach this average, and employees at levels 13-14 basically have zero shares. Moreover, starting from the past few years, to reduce costs and increase efficiency, various departments have recruited large numbers of outsourcing personnel, who do not have shares.
Furthermore, even if you can get shares, they are not given for free; instead, employees have to buy them back at 7.85 CNY per share, plus give up annual leave.
For specific details, you can check Zhihu yourself.
It is worth noting that on the Huawei internal forum—the Voices Community, there are also Huawei employees complaining, "I have been working at Huawei for 10 years and haven't reached the average dividend. I need to reflect on this."
