Huawei expects sales drop to $100bn and smartphone sales to tank 40%

China's Huawei Technologies expects sales to drop to $100bn (£79.4bn) in 2019 and 2020 — around $30bn less than forecast over the next two years.

In 2018, Huawei’s sales went up 19.5% from 2017 to 2018 with revenue of $104.16bn. The group also warned that smartphone sales are to expected to tank 40%.

However, Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei said at an event at the company's Shenzhen headquarters, reported by Reuters, that he expects a revival in the business in 2021 and that the group would not cut research and development spending despite the gloomy outlook for growth over the next two years.

Huawei is under fire from companies, governments, and agencies around the world for being a potential threat to security.

Last week, a group of UK mobile operators wrote a letter to the government’s cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill to urge Whitehall to clarify its position over Chinese tech giant Huawei.

The US, as well as a number of other countries and agencies, have continually pointed out Huawei’s ties to the Chinese government as well as emphasising China’s National Intelligence Law that says organisations must “support, co-operate with and collaborate in national intelligence work.”

Since then, the US, Australia and New Zealand, has barred local firms from using Huawei to provide the technology for their 5G networks.

Ren said at the even that US moves to restrict its business “will not stop us.”

In March this year, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, which is part of the UK government’s intelligence and security organisation GCHQ, released a report that severely criticised the Chinese company, by saying there are “significant technical issues in Huawei’s engineering processes” and its approach to software development brings “significantly increased risk to UK operators.”