The release of revenue numbers today reveals the proposed American ban hasn’t crushed Huawei’s outlook.
Despite weeks of talk about the U.S.-China trade conflict and the American blacklisting of telecom firm Huawei, the company’s revenue increased 23% over the last quarter.
Robust Sales Numbers
Reports today show Huawei cites net profit margins of 8.7% for the first six months of this year and 118 million smartphones sold.
“Revenue grew fast up through May,” Huawei chairman Liang Hua said in a statement, according to a breaking report at The Verge. “Given the foundation we laid in the first half of the year, we continue to see growth even after we were added to the entity list.”
Hua conceded there are challenges ahead but said the company will “stay the course.”
How Huawei Beat the Ban
Economists and analysts are gawking at Huawei’s unusual resilience. The American White House recently tried to ban Huawei from trading with American chipmakers and other U.S. firms.
Reports on the ban show that a collection of prominent U.S. companies went to their attorneys, who contended that despite the blacklist, it was still possible to order from Huawei. As reported on June 25 in The New York Times, the U.S. administration’s effort to keep Huawei out of American trade proved at least partially fruitless.
Deep Ties Between Huawei and Google?
More recent news suggests that Google’s ties to Huawei are deeper than previously thought.
Reports that Google hosted 100 Huawei engineers at its Silicon Valley campus in 2015 hints to close ties between the two companies. There are also rumors of fraternizing between employees of both businesses.
Some experts argue that protectionism doesn’t work in a global economy … And the Google-Huawei connection is, for some analysts, an excellent example. Commentators increasingly recognize the inherent complexity and difficulty of pursuing a ban, while also making the case that China’s Huawei firm may be something of a Trojan horse.
