Thanks to the tighter restriction from the United States and other countries the company was facing a massive revenue loss from these countries other than China.
The disruption caused by the pandemic and the US export blacklist still could not stop Hauwei to record 64.6 billion yuan (A$12.9 billion) new profits in 2020, a 3.2 percent rise from the previous 5.6 percent growth in the previous year.
Huawei was put on an export blacklist by former US President Donald Trump in 2019 and barred from accessing critical technology of US origin, affecting its ability to design its own chips and source components from outside vendors.
“Over the past year we’ve held strong in the face of adversity,” Ken Hu, Huawei’s rotating chairman, said at an event at the company’s headquarters in Shenzhen.
“In 2020 we saw a slowdown in the growth rate and life was not easy for us. The US restrictions have impacted our consumer business, especially our mobile phone business.”
Yet Huawei reported that its consumer business, which includes smartphones, brought in 482.9 billion yuan, up 3.3 percent year on year, and accounted for over half of the company’s revenue.
Its business declined everywhere else, with revenues down to 39.6 billion yuan from the Americas, down 12.2 percent to 180.8 billion yuan in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, down 8.7 percent to 64.4 billion yuan in the rest of Asia.
Revenue from the company’s enterprise segment soared 23 percent year on year to 100.3 billion yuan, although it still makes the smallest in revenue of the three business groups.
The company invested 141.9 billion yuan in R&D spending in 2020, up from 131.7 billion yuan a year earlier.
Huawei’s cash flow from operating activities was 35.2 billion yuan, down by 61.5 percent a year earlier. This was due to the increased expenditure on stockpiling supplies last year and due to increased R&D spending, said Hu.
Huawei’s growth was driven by its home market, with revenue in China up by 15.4 percent to 584.9 billion yuan.
The company’s carrier business, which includes 5G network equipment, brought in 302.6 billion yuan, an increase of just 0.2% a year earlier.
The company is confident that it will keep a leading position in the market and that the company has enough stockpiles of supplies to meet customers’ needs.