Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies reported its biggest ever revenue drop in the first half of 2021.

That after U.S. sanctions drove it to sell a chunk of its once-dominant handset business.

The company generated revenue of about $49.5 billion.

The biggest decline came from Huawei's consumer business group.

Including handsets, where revenue fell 47%.

In 2019 then U.S. President Donald Trump put Huawei on an export blacklist and barred it from accessing technology of U.S. origin.

That affected its ability to design its own chips and source components from outside vendors.

The sanctions hammered Huawei's handset business.

And the brand dropped out of the top five vendors in China for the first time in more than seven years in the second quarter.

Revenue also fell 14% in the first half from Huawei's telecoms equipment business.

It partly blamed the slowdown in China's 5G rollout.

Huawei is widely expected to try to pivot towards software and business areas not at risk of U.S. pressure.

The company started rolling out its Harmony operating system in June, meaning it is no longer wholly reliant on Google's Android platform.

U.S. sanctions barred Google from providing technical support for new phone models.