Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd (HWT.UL) forecast on Friday its 2022 revenue remained unchanged, indicating that its sales decline due to U.S. sanctions had ended.
Despite sales rising a mere 0.02%, rotating Chairman Eric Xu struck an optimistic tone in the company’s annual New Year’s letter, where he disclosed the figure.
“U.S. restrictions are now our new normal, and we’re back to business as usual,” Xu wrote in the letter that was sent to staff and released to the media.
Revenue for the year is estimated to be 636.9 billion yuan ($$91.53 billion), according to Xu.
That represents a small increase from 2021, when revenue reached 636.8 billion yuan, and registered a 30% year-on-year sales slump as the U.S. sanctions on the company came into effect. Xu’s letter did not disclose Huawei’s profitability. The company usually reports its full annual results in the following year’s first quarter.
Revenue for 2022 remained significantly lesser than the company’s record of $122 billion in 2019. At the time the company was at its peak as the leading Android smartphone vendor around the world.
In 2019, the U.S. Trump administration imposed a trade ban on Huawei, pointing to national security concerns, which restricted the company from using Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Android for its new smartphones, among other crucial U.S.-origin technologies.
Buy Crypto NowThe sanctions caused its handset device sales to slump. It also lost access to key components that restricted it from designing its line of processors for smartphones under its HiSilicon chip division.
Notably, the company continues to earn revenue via its networking equipment division, which competes with Ericsson (ERICb.ST) and Nokia (NOKIA.HE). It also runs a cloud computing division. The company started investing in green technologies as well as the electric vehicle (EV) sector around the time sanctions came into effect.
“The macro environment may be rife with uncertainty, but what we can be certain about is that digitization and decarbonization are the way forward, and they’re where future opportunities lie,” said Xu in the letter.
