(Beijing) Huawei assured Friday that it had “weathered the storm” of American sanctions, with an annual turnover trending upwards and a remarkable return to the smartphone niche which questions the effectiveness of the restrictions.
The group based in the metropolis of Shenzhen (southern China) has for several years been at the center of an intense technological rivalry between Beijing and Washington.
The United States, without providing evidence, accuses the company of being able to spy for the benefit of the Chinese authorities, which Huawei firmly contests.
Since 2019, sanctions from Washington have cut the company off from global supply chains for American technologies and components.
US sanctions have forced Huawei to refocus on sectors such as software, connected devices and enterprise IT.
“After years of hard work, we have managed to weather the storm,” said Huawei’s current president, Ken Hu, in a New Year’s message.
Between January and December, the group achieved an annual turnover of “more than 700 billion yuan” or 88.9 billion euros, he told Huawei employees.
This corresponds to an increase of almost 9% over one year.
However, the manager did not provide any figures for net profit or sales of smartphones, which have been seriously weakened in recent years due to sanctions.
Huawei is a private company not listed on the stock exchange. It is therefore not subject to the same obligations as other groups to publish detailed results.
The group, which was pleased with a generally stable turnover in 2022, nevertheless saw its net profit fall sharply over one year (-69%).
“Serious challenges”
“Hard work allowed us to survive […] but we still have serious challenges to overcome,” warned Ken Hu, citing geopolitical and economic uncertainties as well as technological restrictions and trade barriers, which continue to weigh on Huawei.
However, “the company’s activities have largely returned to normal,” he assured.
This summer, Huawei unveiled the Mate 60 Pro, a very high-end smartphone, the launch of which calls into question the effectiveness of American sanctions.
Like a snub to the Biden administration, his presentation coincided in August with the visit to China of Gina Raimondo, the American Secretary of Commerce and responsible for the application of sanctions.
Unexpectedly, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose country is also targeted by American sanctions, praised the performance of Huawei phones during a press conference in Beijing.
The brand also remains the world’s leading equipment manufacturer for 5G, the fifth generation of mobile internet.
But the United States is seeking to convince its allies to ban Huawei from their 5G networks, arguing that Beijing could use the group’s products to monitor a country’s communications and data traffic.
In June, the European Commission found that Chinese telecom equipment suppliers, including Huawei, posed a security risk to the EU.
Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton called on the 27 member countries and telecoms operators to exclude this equipment from their mobile networks.