Huawei’s international smartphone sales plummet after U.S. ban

Huawei’s international smartphone sales have dropped a whopping 40% since the U.S. imposed restrictions on the Chinese technology giant last month. The decline in sales could result is a reduction of 40 to 60 million devices shipped this year. However, Huawei noted that sales of its devices in China remain strong.

But still, the shortfall is expected to take a huge toll on Huawei’s revenue. The company’s founder and CEO, Ren Zhengfei cautioned that the restrictions, set about by the trade war between China and the U.S., will take US$30 billion off its top-line over the next two years.

This year alone, Huawei is expecting revenue to drop to about US$100 billion from US$107 billion last year. Prior to the restrictions, Huawei forecasted a revenue growth of 15 to 25% for 2019.

Ren was speaking at a panel discussion at its headquarters in Shenzhen.

Despite this, Ren remains confident his company will regain its momentum. “By 2020 we will start to regain our growth momentum. We will do a lot of switching over and will take time to ramp up, but after that we will be stronger,” he said.

Ren also said that the company will continue to invest in R&D with plans to “reinvent” itself.

Not the worst

While the next few months will be challenging for Huawei, Ren said the situation is not the worst that the company had to face. He acknowledges that there will be some companies will be cautious about working with Huawei but said there is no way Huawei “can be beaten to death”. “When we were founded, times were much more difficult,” he said.

[via]