Huawei is reporting healthy sales growth, despite U.S. bans against the Chinese-based tech giant, according to a company statement released on Wednesday. Huawei saw revenue increase 24.4 per cent for the last three quarters of the fiscal year, a financial success that is sure to frustrate the U.S. government.
The U.S. Commerce Department added Huawei to the so-called “Entity List” back in May, prohibiting U.S. companies from selling technology to Huawei. There was widespread speculation that the move would hamper Huawei’s ability to grow, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. At least not yet.
The U.S. has been primarily concerned with Huawei’s deployment of 5G telecom infrastructure around the world, an area that the Chinese company boasted about in its latest press release.
To date, Huawei has signed more than 60 commercial contracts for 5G with leading global carriers and shipped more than 400,000 5G Massive MIMO active antenna units (AAUs) to global markets. The production and supply of Huawei’s optical transmission, data communications, and IT products grew steadily.
Some countries, like Australia and New Zealand, have already effectively banned Huawei from developing their 5G networks. But those countries are likely to see higher costs for telecom construction, something that less wealthy countries don’t necessarily have the luxury of doing. But even the UK, a wealthy country, reportedly still has plenty of Huawei equipment being used for its 5G rollout.
This past summer, Huawei warned that its overseas phone sales could decline as much as 40 per cent. But, again, even Huawei’s smartphone business saw recent growth, according to the tech giant’s numbers.
From Huawei:
In the consumer business, Huawei’s smartphone business has grown steadily. Huawei’s smartphone shipments in the first three quarters of 2019 exceeded 185 million units, representing a year-on-year increase of 26%. The company also saw rapid growth in other new businesses like PCs, tablets, wearables, and smart audio products.
The U.S. government has warned allies that Huawei is too closely aligned with Beijing and the People’s Liberation Army, and the company’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, formerly worked with the PLA. Ren’s daughter, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Vancouver, Canada at the request of the Trump regime back in December 2018, though she’s still fighting extradition to the U.S. The U.S. Justice Department also has a lawsuit that accuses Huawei of fraud and the theft of trade secrets.
Donald Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of removing restrictions on Huawei in exchange for favourable terms on a trade deal, but no one knows how serious that might be. The U.S. intelligence community is vitally concerned about Huawei for national security purposes, but Trump has shown again and again that national security isn’t a priority for his regime.
Huawei claimed back in July that U.S. restrictions hadn’t harmed its business, and if the latest numbers are to be believed, the company was absolutely right.
It’s still too early to say what the future holds for Huawei, but it’s a big world out there with plenty of customers clamoring for cheap tech. And U.S. restrictions may not mean as much as they used to for a company like Huawei — the largest telecom firm on Earth.