In 2023, Huawei Technologies experienced its most rapid growth in four years. A revival in consumer operations and earnings from new ventures, such as smart car parts, propelled this surge. These factors sped up recovery from the effects of US sanctions.
The company’s revenue increased by 9.63% to 704.2 billion yuan ($97.48 billion). The consumer sector, notably, saw a 17.3% growth, contributing significantly with 251.49 billion yuan.
Although specifics were not provided, this growth includes Huawei’s mobile phone business. The sector flourished as Huawei re-entered the 5G smartphone market with its Mate 60 model, navigating around US restrictions.
Since 2019, the US has limited Huawei’s access to American technology, citing security concerns—claims Huawei contests.
Following a sharp decline in revenue in 2021 due to depleting chip reserves, last year marked the company’s third year of growth. However, earnings are still not as high as the 2020 peak of 891.3 billion yuan.
Huawei’s announcement of these results was subdued, deviating from its usual practice of hosting a press conference since the US restrictions began.
Ken Hu, the rotating chairman, acknowledged the company’s resilience in a press statement. He noted, “We’ve been through a lot… But we’ve managed to grow.”
Meng Wangzhou, Huawei’s CFO, declared last year that the company had exited crisis mode.
Net profits in 2023 surged by 144.5% to 87 billion yuan. This more than doubled the net profit margin from the previous year to 12.35%.
As per a company spokesperson, a portion of this profit stemmed from the ongoing payments for the Honor smartphone brand sale in November 2020.
While the core ICT infrastructure segment remained steady, the cloud services expanded by over a fifth, amassing 55.3 billion yuan.
Additionally, Huawei’s smart car components and software division, established four years ago, witnessed significant growth of 128.1% to 4.7 billion yuan.
Recently, the company decided to separate its smart car unit into a new entity.
Local reports indicate that Richard Yu, who heads Huawei’s smart car solutions, predicted the unit would start profiting in April after previously incurring losses.
