Huawei's first-half sales, 29.4% year-on-year ↓…The consumer sector is 47% ↓

Chinese tech giant Huawei plunged 29.4% year-on-year in sales in the first half of this year. In particular, smartphone sales plunged due to the U.S. sanctions.

According to the data released on the 6th, total revenue in the first half fell from 454 billion yuan ($70.2 billion, 80 trillion won) to 32.4 billion yuan ($49.6 billion, 56 trillion won) in the same period last year.

This reflects the impact of Huawei's sale of its low-cost smartphone brand "Honor" in November last year as a measure to avoid sanctions.

In 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump blocked Huawei's access to U.S. technologies and services such as the latest processor chips and Google Maps and music, leading to a drop in market share. At the time, the U.S. government pointed out that Huawei was helping China's espionage activities, posing a threat to U.S. security.

In the data released on the same day, Huawei's sales in the consumer sector, including smartphones, fell 47% year-on-year. Sales in this sector account for 42% of total sales.

Sales of network equipment and telephone and Internet technologies fell 14.2 percent. However, large-scale business sectors increased by 17.2%.

"Our aim is to survive and actually do it," Eric Su, a three-member chief executive, said in a statement. "Although sales of our consumer business have decreased due to external factors, we are confident that mobile communication and large-scale business sectors will grow steadily," he stressed.

Huawei did not disclose its net profit figures, but noted that its net margin was 9.8%. The margin decreased from 11.1 percent in the first quarter of this year.

Huawei, based in southern Shenzhen, said it had a net profit of 891.4 billion yuan ($135.8 billion, 150 trillion won) along with a 3.8 percent profit margin in 2020 and warned in a statement by Chairman Su that 2021 would be a "difficult year of challenge."

This year, when U.S. sanctions began in earnest, Huawei focused on sales to China and focused on applications that are less vulnerable to U.S. pressure, such as electric vehicles, self-driving cars, and industrial networks.

Huawei has stockpiled U.S. chips for high-end smartphones, but executives have repeatedly said they have run out of them. Although it designed its own chip, the U.S. blocked Huawei's suppliers from using U.S. technology to produce the design plan.

Huawei has been eliminated from the top five brands in Chinese smartphone sales for three months until June, the first time in more than seven years.

Huawei has said half of its 197,000-strong workforce in 170 countries owns the company. Since 10 years ago, the company has announced its performance by period in consideration of the West's view.

Date: 2021-08-01

Reporter: 서화목