
Things aren’t so desperate for Huawei after all.
Just over a month ago we were told that the Chinese electronics giant was hunkering down for a drop of as much as 60 million units in overseas handset shipments this year. That was quite a blow, we wrote at the time, considering that consumer devices accounted for 45% of its revenue last year from sales of around 206 million units.
This week, however, we learn that the target of U.S. sanctions is actually on track to post sales growth of around 30% in the first half of the year. The work by select teams to get critical components despite the ban and nail down fifth-generation mobile-network contracts are among key reasons for the suddenly sanguine revenue numbers, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday.
Over the past year, the avalanche of news about Huawei has been dismal. The company is still on a U.S. blacklist that threatens to cut off supplies of American components and software, and its chief financial officer is under house arrest in Vancouver. While some U.S. tech executives have lobbied the Trump administration to ease restrictions on Huawei – which counts the likes of Alphabet Inc. and Intel Corp. among suppliers – the outlook remains uncertain.
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