Huawei halts revenue decline and says the future is green and digital.

Robert Clark, Contributing Editor, Special to Light Reading

January 3, 2023

2 Min Read
Huawei back to business as usual, says co-chair

Huawei has ended its revenue slide and has returned to "business as usual," according to its current rotating chairman, Eric Xu.

The company achieved revenue of 636.9 billion Chinese yuan (US$92.2 billion) in 2022, a fraction above the RMB636.8 billion ($92.1 billion) it reported in 2021, Xu revealed.

This contrasts with a 6% fall in first-half sales, including a 25% plunge in device revenue, and a 29% drop in full-year revenue in 2021.

Figure 1: (Source: Sipa US/Alamy Stock Photo) (Source: Sipa US/Alamy Stock Photo)

In year-end remarks, Xu said Huawei's carrier and enterprise infrastructure business had recorded steady growth while the device unit, once the company's biggest, had slowed its decline.

He said the digital energy and cloud businesses had grown rapidly and would be major drivers of future growth.

"In 2022, we successfully pulled ourselves out of crisis mode. US restrictions are now our new normal, and we're back to business as usual," Xu said.

Xu's rhetoric is a significant shift from the pessimistic messaging by Huawei leaders throughout 2022.

CEO and founder Ren Zhengfei said in an internal memo in August the company had to lower its "overly optimistic expectations about the future."

"The first thing to do is to survive, and if you survive, you will have a future," he wrote in an internal memo.

Building platforms to help industries go digital

Now Xu says that after three years of US-led sanctions and market exclusions, the worst is behind Huawei and the future is green and digital.

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

"We need to double down on our commitment to building the foundations of the digital economy and to driving green and sustainable development."

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Over the next decade Huawei would work with partners to build industrial Internet platforms and solutions to help industries go digital and to decarbonize, he said.

Huawei would also seek to make strategic investments in digital energy.

Xu said the vendor would continue to spend heavily on R&D. In 2021 it maintained R&D spending at RMB143 billion yuan ($20.7 billion), despite the steep revenue drop.

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— Robert Clark, contributing editor, special to Light Reading

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Asia

About the Author(s)

Robert Clark

Contributing Editor, Special to Light Reading

Robert Clark is an independent technology editor and researcher based in Hong Kong. In addition to contributing to Light Reading, he also has his own blog,  Electric Speech (http://www.electricspeech.com). 

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