Huawei posts 34 percent growth of revenue in the first half

Huawei Technologies posted first-half revenue showing a 34 percent year-on-year growth, with overall performance in line with forecast, the Chinese tech giant said on Thursday.

Huawei, whose business covers telecommunications equipment, IT infrastructures, cloud, smartphones and relatively new intelligent automotive services, posted a revenue of 417.5 billion yuan (US$66.4 billion) in the first six months, with a year-on-year increase of 34.3 percent and a net profit margin of 13.2 percent.

"Our overall performance was in line with forecast," Eric Xu, Huawei's rotating chairman, said in a statement on Thursday. "Moving forward, we'll continue driving high quality across all business processes, optimizing our portfolio to enhance business resilience, and building thriving ecosystems."

Huawei is still facing strict US tech sanctions. But the company has reduced reliance on American technologies and avoided related sanctions.

In the first half of 2023, the company realized sales revenue of 310.9 billion yuan with a net profit margin of 15 percent. In 2022, Huawei achieved revenue of 642.3 billion yuan, marking a year-on-year increase of just 0.9 percent.

Huawei has regained its high growth rate with new businesses such as AI, cloud and smart automotive, as well as rebound smartphone sales, according to industry insiders.

In the second quarter, China's smartphone sales hit 70 million units, with a 10 percent growth from a year ago. The top five brands were: Vivo, OPPO, Honor, Huawei and Xiaomi, the first time that domestic smartphone brands have taken all top five spots in recent years, according to researcher Canalys.

Chinese vendors, especially Huawei with its Mate and Pura models, are expanding in the high-end market and challenging Apple's market share in the domestic market. Apple ranked No. 6 in the second quarter, researchers said.