Huawei reports revenue surge despite US ban
The Chinese phonemaker said its revenue grew more than 23% in the first half of 2019 over the same period last year.
Huawei reported healthy growth for early 2019 despite its political entanglements.
Huawei on Tuesday reported revenue growth of 23.2% for the first half of the year, even though the Trump administration's ban basically stopped it from accessing US suppliers. The controversial Chinese phonemaker said it made 401.3 billion yuan ($58.3 billion), compared with 325.7 billion yuan ($47.3 billion) in the same period of 2018.
Company Chairman Liang Hua acknowledged that US ban might impact its short-term growth but noted that "revenue grew fast up through May" because of the momentum it achieved up to that point, according to Reuters.
Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei last month said its troubles with the US could ultimately wipe $30 billion off 2019 revenue expectations. However, he also told Yahoo Finance last week hat the company plans to ship 270 million phones this year, a significant increase over the 206 million phones it shipped in 2018.
The US blacklisted Huawei in May by adding it to the "entity list" of groups deemed to be acting against national security interests. It came after President Donald Trump's executive order essentially banned the company based on long-term concerns that it maintained close ties with the Chinese government -- which the company has consistently denied.
Huawei also asserted its dominance over its native market, having shipped 37.3 million smartphones in China in the second quarter. That's a jump of 31% year over year, market research firm Canalys reported.
Liang noted that Huawei's operating system is still in development, Reuters reported, but he reiterated the point that the company wants to keep using Google's Android.
"Hongmeng is part of our long-term strategy... We are definitely not bluffing," he said of the OS.
First published July 30 at 3:13 a.m. PT.
Update, 8:45 a.m. PT: Notes Ren's Yahoo interview.
