Huawei revenue decline slows in H1 2022

The Chinese telecommunications vendor Huawei has announced a slight slowdown in the decline of its revenue results for H1 2022, a first since the 2020 US imposed sanctions.

The vendor announced that  its revenues reached CNY301.6 billion, down from CNY320.4 billion in H1 2021, representing a decline of nearly 6%. Its net profit margin stood at 5% in the first half of this year, down from 9.8% in the same period in 2021. Additionally, its device and consumer business unit declined by 25% compared to the same period last year.

However, revenues from the enterprise segment increased from CNY42.9 billion in H1 2021 to CNY54.7 billion, representing a 27.5% increase, and revenues from the carrier business increased by 4%. Marking an improvement on the downward trajectory from 2021 where the vendor’s revenue had declined by 29% last year following a hit from US administration on its business by export controls, according to the Financial Times.

“While our device business was heavily impacted, our ICT infrastructure [enterprise and carrier] business maintained steady growth,” said Ken Hu, Huawei Chairman. “Moving forward, we will harness trends in digitalization and decarbonization to keep creating value for our customers and partners, and secure quality development.”

Huawei and its peer ZTE have been exposed to numerous direct and indirect pressures from Washington. In addition to the aforementioned sanctions, more recent reports from anonymous sources claimed Huawei equipment installed near US military facilities could disrupt nuclear arsenal communications. Presumably, this is to signal a further push to US operators to accelerate ripping out and replacing Chinese kit.

In the context of these pressures, the Chinese vendor may have to reply on aggressive sales elsewhere in the world to maintain its recovery trajectory.

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