Comparing the development of two communication technology companies using financial statement analysis: Using examples of Huawei and Ericsson

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Business economics - General, grade: 1.7, Fachhochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, language: English, abstract: The general aim of this present thesis is to gain insight into the economic situationof both companies from published annual reports and then into the development of Huawei and Ericsson within six years, since other sources of financial data are not available to outsiders, and the analysis of the consolidated financialstatements of Huawei and Ericsson, which was prepared in accordance with IFRSs, within the six year period, gives insights into the economic situation of the two companies. To be more precise, the objectives of this essay are to analyze the financial statements of those two communication technology companies using various financial indicators in order to evaluate both balance sheets' structures, liquidity situations and performances, then to perform a comparison between those two companies in order to study the development of both companies during the last six years and to find out how Huawei overtook its rival Ericsson and whether this success and continuous growth is still sustainable in the current global economic recession and financial crisis as well as in the future. This thesis's main task is to compare the analytic results of the two firms from 2011 to 2016 in order to find out to what extent Huawei has surpassed Ericsson, using the instruments of financial statement analysis. First, using the principle of Küting and Weber, we reformulated the financial statements of the two companies to make them more comparable, and then we calculated the necessary key ratios extracted from annual financial reporting so that we can make comparison and outline the company's status in three aspects, i.e. structure, liquidity, and performance. At last, after comparison of ratios of the two companies conclusions were drawn.