In the financial report on March 31, the Chinese telecommunications company said its 2020 profit reached 64.6 billion yuan ($ 9.9 billion), up 3.2% from the previous year. Its revenue reached 891.4 billion yuan ($ 136.7 billion), up 3.8%.
"Over the past year, we have firmly faced adversity," emphasized Ken Hu, Huawei's rotating chairman.
However, the growth rate has slowed significantly, because before the US ban in mid-2019, Huawei's revenue often increased at double digits, even above 30%. China is the only region that maintains double-digit revenue growth (15.4%) and this market also accounts for more than 65% of Huawei's total revenue.
Its smartphone sales declined after the US restricted it from buying hardware, software and services from U.S. carriers without government approval. Data from independent analysts indicate that Huawei's domestic and overseas phone sales both fell by more than 40% in the fourth quarter of 2020. In November 2020, the company had to sell its Honor brand to a newly formed alliance in China. However, a number of other products such as tablets, laptops, wearables, and smart home flourished, compensating for the decline in smartphones.
The pandemic and pressure from the US pushed Huawei to expand its business beyond telecommunications equipment and smartphones. The company is focusing on five areas of technology: connectivity, the cloud, artificial intelligence, computing and specialized applications to create new opportunities. In September 2020, the company announced its goal of becoming one of the 5 largest cloud service providers in the world.
AI is also an area the Chinese telecoms company is particularly interested in. In Covid-19, the company provides many AI and cloud solutions for the medical industry, for example AI software that automatically reads and analyzes CT scan results, reducing the time to read and diagnose doctors from 10 minutes. down to a minute.
Huawei is also betting on inverters, electronic mining solutions, and smart vehicle software to prepare itself for long-term moves. Each inverter can be sold for more than 20,000 yuan ($ 3,000), higher than the company's folding smartphone. They are also planning to launch more solar inverters, as Beijing encourages renewables.
