The "comeback kid" Huawei doubles its profits despite US boycotts

Economic recovery The "comeback kid" Huawei doubles its profits despite US boycotts

2024-04-12 From Henrik Bork * | Translated by AI 3 min Reading Time

Related Vendors

Despite all the economic challenges posed by sanctions, things are looking up again for tech company Huawei, thanks in part to politics and patriotism among the Chinese.

The US has accused Huawei of posing a threat to their national security. It is said that the company is closely linked to the Chinese government and that its technology could be used for espionage purposes.(Image: Free licensed / Pixabay) — The US has accused Huawei of posing a threat to their national security. It is said that the company is closely linked to the Chinese government and that its technology could be used for espionage purposes.
(Image: Free licensed / Pixabay)

Chinese technology giant Huawei, a favorite enemy of the US government, is currently very successful economically. According to the company's latest financial report, its net earnings in 2023 increased by 144.5 percent.

"Huawei resists US sanctions," headlines DigiTimes Asia. Not only have profits jumped again in the past year, but the company has also reported a series of technological breakthroughs and a growing ecosystem for its digital products, the specialist portal says.

"For the company, the coming years are about survival," Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei still wrote in an internal memo to his employees in the summer of 2022.

On the blacklist

Huawei was one of the first Chinese companies to appear on blacklists in Washington since 2018, when a trade and technology war against Beijing was decided there. Initially, Huawei was banned from selling its telecom equipment in the U.S., citing national security. Huawei has always denied providing its equipment to the Chinese government for espionage purposes.

Later, Huawei and a number of its competitors in China were also deliberately denied access to advanced chips and equipment for their manufacture. Initially, the sanctions and boycotts had indeed hit the Chinese flagship company hard. For example, the business with cheap Honor brand phones had to be abandoned.

Harmony OS is now popular

But now, Huawei is the "comeback kid" of the year. Business is booming again. The company's own mobile operating system, "Harmony OS," is now installed on 800 million devices according to media reports.

More than 9.5 million developers are working with Harmony OS, which indicates a "robust device ecosystem," according to DigiTimes Asia. Particularly, Kunpeng, an AI computing platform from Huawei, and Ascend, an AI system based on "Huawei Cloud," are growing rapidly.

Even the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) wrote a few days ago about a "sensational success" and a "comeback" for Huawei despite the many years it has been supposed to be cut off from advanced technology at the behest of the USA. The manufacturer of mobile phones and telecom equipment has proven to be "very resilient," according to the conservative economic newspaper from Washington.

Last September, Huawei surprised market observers when it launched a very advanced 5G-capable phone, the "Mate 60 Pro," which runs on chips "developed by Huawei itself," according to the WSJ.

Many Chinese people buy the phone not only because of Huawei's "Kirin-9000" chip, but also as a patriotic statement. Among successful and relatively well-off city dwellers in the People's Republic, it is now considered much "cooler" to pull out a Huawei phone than an iPhone from Apple.

Big in the homeland

While Huawei's presence outside of China has declined since the company became a target of the US government, Huawei currently generates 70 percent of its revenue in China itself, according to the US business paper in its report. That's ten percent less than five years before.

However, the establishment of new business segments for cloud computing, enterprise software, and autonomous driving systems has evidently been successful. The smartphone business is also growing again, the latter at the expense of Apple and other foreign competitors, whose revenues in the Chinese market are stagnating or declining.

Analysts say that Huawei also benefits from Beijing's localization policy, which is trying to respond to the tech boycotts from Washington. So also Huawei's semiconductor business is making progress, because the communist leadership in China is striving for more self-sufficiency in this area. The third round of the "Big Fund" is currently being prepared, with its funds supporting domestic companies.

After the attack from the USA, Huawei started to invest large amounts in Research & Development. According to the most recent financial report, this amounted to more than 164 billion Yuan (about 21 billion Euros) in 2023, or about 23 percent of the company's total revenue.

Thus, the Chinese company, led from Shenzhen, is becoming an increasingly dangerous competitor for US chip manufacturers. "Huawei has managed to deliver AI chips that developers say match the capabilities of some top processors from Nvidia," the Wall Street Journal acknowledges.

Subscribe to the newsletter now

Don't Miss out on Our Best Content

Business E-mail

Please enter a valid mailadress.

By clicking on „Subscribe to Newsletter“ I agree to the processing and use of my data according to the consent form (please expand for details) and accept the Terms of Use. For more information, please see our Privacy Policy. The consent declaration relates, among other things, to the sending of editorial newsletters by email and to data matching for marketing purposes with selected advertising partners (e.g., LinkedIn, Google, Meta)

Date: 08.12.2025

Naturally, we always handle your personal data responsibly. Any personal data we receive from you is processed in accordance with applicable data protection legislation. For detailed information please see our privacy policy.

Consent to the use of data for promotional purposes

I hereby consent to Vogel Communications Group GmbH & Co. KG, Max-Planck-Str. 7-9, 97082 Würzburg including any affiliated companies according to §§ 15 et seq. AktG (hereafter: Vogel Communications Group) using my e-mail address to send editorial newsletters. A list of all affiliated companies can be found here

Newsletter content may include all products and services of any companies mentioned above, including for example specialist journals and books, events and fairs as well as event-related products and services, print and digital media offers and services such as additional (editorial) newsletters, raffles, lead campaigns, market research both online and offline, specialist webportals and e-learning offers. In case my personal telephone number has also been collected, it may be used for offers of aforementioned products, for services of the companies mentioned above, and market research purposes.

Additionally, my consent also includes the processing of my email address and telephone number for data matching for marketing purposes with select advertising partners such as LinkedIn, Google, and Meta. For this, Vogel Communications Group may transmit said data in hashed form to the advertising partners who then use said data to determine whether I am also a member of the mentioned advertising partner portals. Vogel Communications Group uses this feature for the purposes of re-targeting (up-selling, cross-selling, and customer loyalty), generating so-called look-alike audiences for acquisition of new customers, and as basis for exclusion for on-going advertising campaigns. Further information can be found in section “data matching for marketing purposes”.

In case I access protected data on Internet portals of Vogel Communications Group including any affiliated companies according to §§ 15 et seq. AktG, I need to provide further data in order to register for the access to such content. In return for this free access to editorial content, my data may be used in accordance with this consent for the purposes stated here. This does not apply to data matching for marketing purposes.

Right of revocation

I understand that I can revoke my consent at will. My revocation does not change the lawfulness of data processing that was conducted based on my consent leading up to my revocation. One option to declare my revocation is to use the contact form found at https://contact.vogel.de. In case I no longer wish to receive certain newsletters, I have subscribed to, I can also click on the unsubscribe link included at the end of a newsletter. Further information regarding my right of revocation and the implementation of it as well as the consequences of my revocation can be found in the data protection declaration, section editorial newsletter.

The company also benefits from the intensive digitization and automation of the Chinese manufacturing industry, which is operated by the Beijing headquarters. This way, Huawei finds many customers among China's banks and mines for its AI services provided in the cloud. Huawei's cloud business grew particularly strongly last year, at 21.9 percent, reports the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. (sb)

*Henrik Bork, a long-time China correspondent for the German Süddeutsche Zeitung and the Frankfurter Rundschau, is Managing Director at Asia Waypoint, a Beijing-based consultancy specializing in China.