Huawei’s mobile and consumer division continued to outperform its wavering telecommunications equipment arm in the first half, helping the Chinese company to increase sales to Rmb454bn ($ 64.9bn).
Sales growth slowed to just over 13 percent, compared to 23 percent in the first half of 2019, but privately-owned Huawei said its profit margin had improved from 8.7 percent to 9.2 percent and that its three main divisions had shown growth
The company released its results on the eve of a UK government decision on whether to force its telecoms operators to remove Huawei from its networks and leave it as the provider of 5G, the next generation of mobile internet.
The group’s telecommunications equipment business has faced serious political difficulties, while its consumer division has been hit by trade sanctions that prevent its latest phones from using Google’s mobile phone software package.
Gartner, the research group, calculated that Huawei was the worst hit of the major smartphone manufacturers in the first quarter, with shipments declining 27 percent, but the company said its consumer business had increased sales by a 16 percent to Rmb255.8bn in the first half.
In Huawei’s operator business, which sells equipment for use in telecommunications networks, sales rose 9 percent to Rmb159.6bn as customers, including BT, Vodafone and Three in the UK, implemented networks 5G.
“These results show that they continue to choose Huawei when they want reliability, security and value. Our priority here is to build a better connected UK where everyone can benefit from 5G and fiber broadband, no matter where they live, ”said Victor Zhang, vice president of Huawei.
The company previously said that the United States’ campaign against it had materially affected its finances.
Eric Xu, president of Huawei, said in March that his annual revenue had exceeded expectations by $ 12 billion last year. “The United States government’s campaign against Huawei in Europe has had a fairly substantial impact on our business,” said Xu.
