Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Inc (華為) yesterday said that its annual revenue last year had fallen by nearly one-third from the previous year as it continued to be weighed down by US sanctions that have hit its smartphone sales.
Huawei has been caught in the crossfire of a US-China trade and technology rivalry after the administration of former US president Donald Trump moved to cripple the company over concerns that it could pose a cybersecurity and espionage threat.
The firm’s revenue for this year fell by 29 percent year-on-year to 634 billion yuan (US$99.5 billion), Huawei chairman Guo Ping (郭平) said in an annual new year message.
Photo: AFP
“In 2021, despite all the trials and tribulations, we worked hard to create tangible value for our customers and local communities,” Guo said.
“We enhanced the quality and efficiency of our operations, and expect to round off the year with a total revenue of 634 billion yuan,” he said.
The telecom carrier segment had “remained stable” and “overall performance was in line with our forecasts,” he said.
HONOR OFFLOADING
Huawei’s revenue fell last year due in part to the offloading of its budget phone brand Honor, which was sold in late 2020.
Huawei is not a publicly listed firm.
The message did not give any other financial specifics.
The company was on a “bumpy, but rewarding” road, Guo said, adding that this year would come with “its fair share of challenges.”
Huawei’s travails have forced it to quickly pivot into new business lines, including enterprise computing, wearables and health tech, technology for intelligent vehicles and software.
The US has barred Huawei from acquiring crucial components such as microchips and forced it to create its own operating system by cutting it off from using Google’s Android operating system.
Last month, the company launched a new foldable phone and said that 220 million Huawei devices were running its HarmonyOS.
SMARTPHONE DROP
The group is the world’s biggest supplier of telecoms network gear and was once a top-three smartphone producer along with Apple and Samsung.
However, it has fallen well down the smartphone ranks owing to US pressure.
In October, the group said that its sales volume for the first nine months of last year had fallen 32 percent.
However, a major complication for the company was solved last year with the return to China of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟), the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei (任正菲).
She spent nearly three years under house arrest in Canada on a US extradition warrant, which China said was motivated by politics.
Meng was released a month ago after US prosecutors announced an agreement under which fraud charges were to be suspended and eventually dropped.
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