Huawei’s first-half revenue up 23.2% despite US sanctions

Huawei’s first-half revenue increased by 23.2 per cent year on year to $58.34b despite the US sanctions.

According to Huawei's Chairman, Liang Hua, operations are smooth and the organisation is as sound as ever. With effective management and an excellent performance across all financial indicators, Huawei's business has remained robust in the first half of the year.

The company's net profit margin for first half was 8.7%.

In the carrier business, Huawei’s first-half sales revenue reached $21.29 billion, with steady growth in production and shipment of equipment for wireless networks, optical transmission, data communications, IT, and related product domains.

To date, Huawei has secured 50 commercial 5G contracts and has shipped more than 150,000 base stations to markets around the world.

 In the enterprise business, sales revenue stood at $4.59 billion. 

Eyes new stage of growth

In the consumer business, sales revenue stood at $32.1 billion.

Huawei's smartphone shipments (including Honor phones) reached 118 million units, up 24% year on year.

The company also saw rapid growth in its shipments of tablets, PCs, and wearables. Huawei is beginning to scale its device ecosystem to deliver a more seamless intelligent experience across all major user scenarios.

"Revenue grew fast up through May," said Liang.

"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. We are fully confident in what the future holds, and we will continue investing as planned – including a total of $17.44 billion in R&D this year. We'll get through these challenges, and we're confident that Huawei will enter a new stage of growth after the worst of this is behind us," he added.

In May, Huawei was added to the Entity List which halts the ability to do business with US companies. The sanctions were up to August 19 but the Trump administration softened its stances at the G20 Summit, though details are unknown.

Huawei’s founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei said last month that revenues may continue decreasing towards the end of this year.

He also added that it could cost the company $30 billion in revenue, and revenues in 2019 and in 2020 could stay roughly the same as 2018 at around $100 billion.

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