Chinese consumer electronics and telecommunications equipment manufacturer Huawei Technologies Co Ltd has just recently announced their revenue for 2018. The company apparently hit record-breaking sales last year, earning them a place beside companies such as Google’s Alphabet and Apple in the exclusive US$100 billion club. Over the weekend, the world’s largest telecommunication equipment exporter revealed that their revenue had jumped by more than 19 percent, earning them around US$107.1 billion in 2018.
According to the tech giant, its consumer business group was the largest contributor to its annual sales figures. Sales of the company’s smartphones, both in China and abroad, apparently overtook the sales figures of its network equipment business.
In its earnings report, the company revealed that the revenue it gained from its carrier business stayed at the same relative levels, netting them around US$43 billion last year. However, the revenue from their consumer business jumped by almost 45 percent last year, making them more than US$52 billion. Huawei’s enterprise business also surged by almost 24 percent last year, earning the company around US$11 billion.
Huawei rotating chairman, Guo Ping, announced last week that the flat sales in the company’s carrier business may have been caused by the 4G rollout amidst their push for 5G. Guo mentioned to shareholders that the company is planning to heavily invest in large-scale 5G deployment this year. The new technology should provide the company with big opportunities given 5G’s broader connectivity capabilities for people and other technologies.
The company’s overall revenue growth last year rose by 15.7 percent when compared to the previous year. Net profits hit around US$59 billion, up by more than 25 percent year-on-year. Huawei also reportedly invested around 14 percent of its revenue, or roughly US$15 billion, in research and development.
The massive amount of growth comes amidst the company’s continued struggles against a siege of blockades preventing it from expanding its 5G mobile networks in some parts of the world. Just recently, the UK announced that it saw Huawei as a major security risk to the country’s telecommunications network due to its failure to fix major security flaws in its software and equipment. However, the country does not think that China’s state interference has anything to do with the company’s shortcomings.
The EU also did not accept the United States’ advice to completely ban the company from setting up its 5G mobile networks in the region. Instead, the commission advised its member states to conduct their own security assessments within their respective markets. Huawei responded by saying that it will heavily invest in improving its technologies to meet the UK’s higher requirements.
