Meng Wanzhou, the Chief Financial Officer of Huawei Technologies Co. appears to have had a penchant for products by Apple Inc., one of the Chinese giant’s biggest rivals.
Meng Wanzhou, was carrying a bunch of devices made by one of her company’s biggest rivals when she was arrested in Canada in December.
Huawei has been in the wars lately. Not only has it had its state-of-the-art 5G cellular tower technology rejected on national security grounds by the US and other countries, its CFO and daughter of founder Ren Zhengfei has been arrested in Canada pending a US application for extradition on espionage charges. In new court filings, it has been revealed that Meng Wanzhou appears to be a fan of Huawei arch-rival Apple’s technology more so than Huawei’s equivalent products.
Instead of a Huawei MateBook laptop or Huawei MediaPad tablet, Meng was arrested in possession of an iPhone 7 Plus, a MacBook Air, and an iPad Pro, in addition to a Huawei Mate 20 RS phone featuring a Porsche design.
Huawei and Apple are fierce competitors, with Huawei supplanting Apple as the second-biggest smartphone maker in the world last year. It was the first time since 2010 that Apple was not ranked first or second.
Meng’s lawyers had applied to secure a copy of the data stored on the devices and then seal them, and Canada’s crown prosecution approved the request, Bloomberg said.
The disclosure is potentially embarrassing for Huawei, which earlier this year punished two employees who it found responsible for a tweet sent from the company’s account by an iPhone, reportedly demoting them and cutting their pay by 5,000 yuan (about $730).
