Huawei’s unrelenting rise to global dominance in the telecoms equipment market has presented the Chinesecompany with many challenges — including persuading consumers to pronounce its name “wah-way”, not “who-are-we”.

But this year, the 31-year-old company has come under serious, unprecedented scrutiny, caught in the middle of a trade war between the US and China while concerns mount about the use of its equipment in European telecoms networks.

More recently, the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the company’s chief financial officer, on Saturday has sent shockwaves through the ranks of the telecoms group, where insiders see the move as a personal attack on Ren Zhengfei, the company’s founder and Ms Meng’s father. Mr Ren founded Huawei in 1987, working out of his flat in Shenzhen and selling landline equipment imported from Hong Kong to mainland China. The former People’s Liberation Army officer quickly built up a substantial business reselling switches in ruralChinese regions that had largelybeen ignored by established Western companies.