Huawei defies U.S. sanctions with profit gain
Despite everything, Huawei eked out a rise in earnings for 2020.
Net profit climbed just over 3% to about $9.8 billion.
That despite a decline in overseas revenues as a result of the global health crisis, and ongoing U.S. sanctions.
Ken Hu is rotating chairman at Huawei:
"We have achieved rapid growth in sales of devices apart from smartphones, including wearable devices, laptops, large-size screen devices, which increased 65%. These increases partially offset the impact of the decline in our smartphone sales. Still, in general, over the past year, the impact of unfair sanctions by the United States did affect our mobile phone business adversely."
Huawei has been on a U.S. blacklist since 2019, and is barred from accessing critical technology of U.S. origin.
In November it sold off its budget handset brand to help stay alive.
Huawei's growth in 2020 was driven by its home market.
Revenues in China jumped over 15%.
Business declined everywhere else.
Hu couldn't say how much of the fall was down to the health crisis, and how much to geopolitical factors.
But he said he was confident that overseas sales would improve in 2021.
