Huawei Technologies on Tuesday, April 30, released information on the financial performance of its activities in the first quarter of the current year.
The mentioned company’s net profit, based in the Chinese city of Shenzhen, located in the south of Guangdong Province, amounted to 19.65 billion yuan ($2.71 billion) in January-March 2024. This indicator increased by 564% compared to the result for the same period last year. The company’s net profit for the last quarter is a kind of evidence that Huawei is currently on a trajectory of a sustainable recovery after sanctions from the United States.
The firm’s revenue for the first quarter of 2024 was fixed at 178.5 billion yuan. This indicator showed an increase of 37% compared to the result for the same period in 2023. The relevant data is contained in a report that Huawei sent to China’s National Interbank Funding Center. This documentation does not contain information about the results of the company’s units in the first quarter of 2024. In particular, there is no data on the performance of operating units, which specialize in the production of consumer goods and components for smart cars.
A Huawei spokesperson said digitalization, intelligence, and decarbonization have become a platform for revenue growth. The company also made an official statement that uncertainty will remain in the industry in which it carries out and in global markets until the end of the current year. Moreover, the firm drew attention to the ongoing work on mechanisms to ensure global business and agile operations. The company also stated confidence that it will be able to achieve annual business goals and sustainable growth.
In 2023, Huawei demonstrated the fastest revenue growth rate in the last four years. This intense dynamic is largely due to the rebound in the consumer segment and increased revenue from new business segments, including the production of components for smart cars, which accelerated the recovery after sanctions against the company from the United States.
Huawei’s smartphone-making activities are currently at a high-intensity level. The relevant business of the company has faced significant and repeated restrictions on opportunities since 2019 against the background of Washington’s sanctions. The mentioned activity of the firm intensified after the debut of the Mate 60 Pro smartphone with a chip sported 5G technology last year. After the start of sales of this device, Apple’s share in the Chinese cell phone market has significantly decreased. For a technology giant from the United States, this is a sensitive impact factor. Data from the research company Counterpoint indicates that in the first quarter of 2024, Apple’s share of the Chinese smartphone market was 15.7%. A year earlier, the corresponding figure was fixed at 19.7%.
In April, Huawei launched sales of its long-awaited high-end Pura 70 series smartphones.
The company has also achieved significant results in the area of smart car development technologies. Huawei’s driver assistance system is used by at least seven Chinese automakers.
Deputy chairwoman of the company Meng Wanzhou, during an event jointly held by the ASEAN Foundation and Huawei in Bangkok, announced the firm’s desire to regain its position in the Asia-Pacific region. In this context, she noted that the manufacturer is eyeing opportunities in digital and artificial intelligence in the mentioned region. According to her, foundation AI models are trained based on global data, but in the context of access and application issues, significant gaps remain between countries. She noted that cooperation is needed to solve the mentioned problem.
Meng Wanzhou also said that Huawei will continue to work with partners in areas such as 5G, cloud computing, and digital power technologies to lower energy consumption. Moreover, she noted that the company will continue to participate in digital transformation and artificial intelligence initiatives in the Asia-Pacific region. Huawei’s revenue in the mentioned region for 2023 amounted to 41 billion yuan. This indicator fell by 14.6% year-on-year.
Huawei is making efforts to expand its operations in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2022, the company launched a cloud business in Indonesia. Last year, Huawei strengthened its cooperation with the local telecommunications network operator Telkomsel in the 5G apps area.
Serhii Mikhailov
Serhii’s track record of study and work spans six years at the Faculty of Philology and eight years in the media, during which he has developed a deep understanding of various aspects of the industry and honed his writing skills; his areas of expertise include fintech, payments, cryptocurrency, and financial services, and he is constantly keeping a close eye on the latest developments and innovations in these fields, as he believes that they will have a significant impact on the future direction of the economy as a whole.