Huawei consumer business continues to tank

Chinese telecoms vendor Huawei’s latest quarterly numbers reveal another big fall in revenues, thanks mainly to its crippled consumer division.

While we should perhaps be grateful that privately-owned Huawei chooses to share any numbers with us, we still regret how sparing they are. All we get these days is just the two datapoints: that revenue for the first three quarter combined was CNY455.8 billion and its net profit margin was 10.2%. The revenue figure is down 32% year-on-year but the margin is slightly improved. Light Reading has done the maths for the Q3-only numbers.

“Overall performance was in line with forecast,” said Guo Ping, Huawei’s Rotating Chairman. “While our B2C business has been significantly impacted, our B2B businesses remain stable. Through our ongoing commitment to innovation, R&D, and talent acquisition, and rigorous attention to operating efficiency, we are confident we will continue to create practical value for our customers and the communities in which we work.”

A look at the latest numbers below (derived from Counterpoint) reveals Huawei’s smartphone business is still in a tailspin that will see it all but eradicated by the end of the year if the trend continues. Counterpoint’s numbers even for Huawei’s domestic market are little better, with the chip embargo and Android restrictions decimating its share of that market. It can derive some small consolation from the apparent success of its move to spare Honor from the same fate.

With the global semiconductor shortage showing no sign of letting up, nor sparing anyone its ravages, Huawei might reflect that there are worse times to be out of the devices market. Networking equipment needs chips too, though, and Huawei’s stockpiles can’t be infinite. There doesn’t seem to be too much decline left on the consumer side for Huawei, so if overall revenues keep declining at this rate we will have to assume the networking business is the cause.