Huawei— the world’s largest network equipment supplier and a leader in 5G technology –––made $32.2 billion in revenue in the April-June quarter, a 23 percent increase over the previous quarter despite the escalation of the US-China trade war cutting off its business with American companies. Net profit margin was 8.7 percent on 401.3 billion yuan ($58.3 billion) of revenue for the first six months of 2019.
Huawei sold 118 million smartphones in the first half of the year — 59 million in each quarter — representing a 24 percent year-on-year increase, though the growth was accounted for in the first quarter. Huawei’s consumer business reached 220.8 billion yuan ($32.1 billion) in revenue for the same period, making up 55 percent of the company’s total sales.
“We will stay the course”
“Revenue grew fast up through May,” Chairman Liang Hua said in a statement. “Given the foundation we laid in the first half of the year, we continue to see growth even after we were added to the entity list. That’s not to say we don’t have difficulties ahead. We do, and they may affect the pace of our growth in the short term. But we will stay the course.”
But Huawei is releasing more information than it historically ever has — the quarterly report in April was actually its first ever.The figures come as Canalys issues a report detailing Huawei’s increasing dominance of the Chinese smartphone market over the past quarter. Despite an overall market downturn of six percent, the ninth successive quarterly slide, Huawei managed to grow 31 percent year-on-year to capture 38 percent share at home.
Vivo, Apple face decline
Its competitors — Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, and Apple —experienced double-digit declines.
This was at the expense at every one of Huawei’s major competitors — Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, and Apple — which all experienced double-digit declines, according to the report. China accounted for 64 percent of Huawei’s shipments, the highest proportion since 2013.
The relationship between the US and Chinese phone maker Huawei has officially boiled over. The tensions have been mounting for nearly a year a half, starting with carriers pulling out of deals to provide Huawei phones and escalating to full-blown trade bans and the unprecedented revocation of Huawei’s Android license. All the while, the US has sought the extradition of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei, on fraud charges.
Huawei sold more than Apple
Huawei sold more smartphones than Apple in the first three months of 2019 and had ambitions of overtaking Samsung as the world’s largest smartphone maker by 2020.
But the US administration’s restrictions, imposed on May 16, caused an immediate dent in the Shenzhen-based company’s international business. CEO Ren Zhengfei said earlier this month that Huawei’s global smartphone sales plummeted 40% between May 17 and June 16, compared to the previous 30-day period.
“We acknowledge the US president’s comments relating to Huawei [on Saturday] and have no further comment at this time,” the company said in a statement.
Trump said on July 1, 2019 that he would lift some restrictions that barred American firms from selling critical tech and components to Huawei without a US government license.
“US companies can sell their equipment to Huawei,” as long as the transactions don’t present a “great, national emergency problem,” Trump said at the G20 summit in Japan. So Huawei has a chance to regain lost ground in the battle for smartphone supremacy after President Donald Trump reversed course on a campaign against the company that was hurting global sales.
— Internet
