Huawei revenue soars despite US allegations and restrictions

Huawei’s business grew strong in the first-quarter with revenues rising 39% year on year to 179.7 billion Chinese yuan ($26.76 billion), mainly fueled by focus on ICT infrastructure and smart devices as well as boosting the efficiency and quality of its operations.

The firm shipped 59 million smartphones in the quarter and added revenue of 179.7 billion yuan ($26.8 billion). Based on these results, not being able to sell devices in the US hasn't really affected the company.

Last year, the third largest smartphone manufacturer after Samsung and Apple, shipped 206 million units, inching closer to Apple’s 208.8 million units, according to research firm Gartner’s data.

Huawei’s smartphone shipments rose 33.6 per cent year on year in 2018, the fastest growth rate in the industry while Samsung’s shipments declined eight per cent and Apple’s shipments by 3.2 per cent.

Huawei has high hopes of becoming the number one smartphone manufacturer in the next two years.

It's not just smartphones

According to Huawei's financial statement, other business segments like PCs, wearables, and smart home also gained traction from global consumers for its leading, innovative products and user experiences.

The Chinese player is also a big name in the 5G network equipment supplier and it is entering the cloud and artificial intelligence market in a big way. Huawei is also one of the few smartphones manufactures, after Samsung and Oppo, to showcase 5G mobile devices.

Charles Yang, president of Huawei Middle East, told TechRadar Middle East, that Huawei will not be put off by the false accusations by the US and will push ahead with its 5G rollout and investments in the Middle East as well as globally.

Huawei has 283 global partners and 57 regional partners for 5G and expects to have one million bases stations globally by 2020.

Yang added that cybersecurity is a top priority for the company that has served three billion users in 170 countries (1,500 carrier networks) and never had any network security incident.

According to online market intelligence platform IPlytics, the Chinese company leads the race in the number of 5G standard technical contributions by a company. Huawei held 11,423 patents in 2018, followed by Ericsson with 10,351 and Nokia with 6,878, the other two big networks equipment makers.

With Huawei investing $15 billion in R&D in 2018 and ranks among the top five, it has a clear strategic positioning in the 5G race and has the capacity to mass produce 5G chips, 5G mobile routers and CPE (customer-premises equipment), a wireless router for home.