China's Huawei sees 'business as usual' as US sanctions impact wanes

Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd HWT.UL estimated on Friday its 2022 revenue remained flat, suggesting that its sales decline due to US sanctions had come to a halt.

Despite sales increasing a mere 0.02%, rotating chairman Eric Xu struck an upbeat tone in the company's annual New Year's letter, where he revealed the figure.

"US restrictions are now our new normal, and we're back to business as usual," Xu wrote in the letter that was addressed to staff and released to media.

Revenue for the year is expected to be 636.9 billion yuan ($$91.53 billion), according to Xu.

That represents a tiny increase from 2021, when revenue hit 636.8 billion yuan, and marked a 30% year-on-year sales tumble as the US sanctions on the company took effect.

Xu's letter did not mention Huawei's profitability. The company typically discloses its full annual results in the following year's first quarter.

Revenue for 2022 still remained well below the company's record of $122 billion in 2019. At the time the company was at its peak as the top Android smartphone vendor globally.

In 2019, the US Trump administration imposed a trade ban on Huawei, citing national security concerns, which barred the company from using Alphabet Inc's GOOGL.O Android for its new smartphones, among other critical US-origin technologies.

The sanctions caused its handset device sales to plummet. It also lost access to critical components that barred it from designing its line of processors for smartphones under its HiSilicon chip division.

The company continues to generate revenue via its networking equipment division, which competes with Nokia NOKIA.HE and Ericsson ERICb.ST. It also operates a cloud computing division.

The company began investing in the electric vehicle (EV) sector as well as green technologies around the time sanctions took effect.

"The macro environment may be rife with uncertainty, but what we can be certain about is that digitisation and decarbonisation are the way forward, and they're where future opportunities lie," said Xu in the letter.