Chinese telecoms kit giant Huawei defied its critics by raking in loads more cash in the first quarter of this year.

In Q1 2019 Huawei brought in CNY179.7 billion in revenue, up 39% year-on-year. It also trousered 8% of that in profit, which was apparently a slightly better margin than last year. As has been extensively documented Huawei isn’t a public company so it technically doesn’t have to say anything publicly about its business, but is serves a few nuggets up compliance with the International Financial Reporting Standard.

There was some more subtle gloating in the Huawei announcement. By the end of March 2019 Huawei says it had signed 40 commercial contracts for 5G with leading global carriers, which is loads more than Ericsson, and had shipped more than 70,000 5G base globally. It also claims to have shipped more Wifi 6 products than any other company and reckons it shifted 59 million smartphones in Q1.

Of course any Huawei numbers have to be frame by the ‘despite escalating tensions with the US’ proviso, but it must be said it’s not a bad effort to so dramatically increase revenues when facing such geopolitical headwinds. There were no canned quotes or guidance but CNY179.7 billion equates to around $27 billion, while Ericsson’s SEK49 billion is more like $5 billion. Enough said.