(Yicai) April 3 -- Huawei Technologies plans to hand an annual dividend of nearly CNY77.1 billion (USD10.7 billion) to over 150,000 employee shareholders after profit more than doubled last year, the Chinese tech giant said in a regulatory filing yesterday.

With around 51.3 billion shares outstanding, the cash dividend equals CNY1.5 (20 US cents) per share, the least since 2019, according to calculations done by Reuters.

Current and retired employees own all of the Shenzhen-based telecoms gear and auto software giant. Founder Ren Zhengfei has about a 0.7 percent stake, so he will receive more than CNY500 million (USD69.1 million) from dividends this time.

Some 151,800 staff were in the company’s stock ownership scheme as of Dec. 31, so if equally shared, each of them could get about CNY507,000 (USD70,070), according to the latest annual report. Huawei’s renumeration consists of three parts: salary, bonuses, and dividends.

The scheme is not just a profit-sharing plan as employee ownership helps Huawei maintain its decision-making independence, Jiang Shisheng, chief secretary of the board, said in an interview with Yicai.

Huawei’s profit more than doubled last year thanks to strong results at its cloud and digital power businesses. Net profit surged 144 percent to CNY87 billion in the 12 months ended Dec. 31, it said at the end of last month. Revenue rose 9.6 percent to CNY704.2 billion (USD99.5 billion), exceeding the CNY700 billion mark for the first time since 2021.

“We’ve been though a lot over the past few years,” rotating Chairman Hu Houkun said in comments to accompany the earnings results. “But through one challenge after another, we’ve managed to grow.”

Editors: Tang Shihua, Emmi Laine