Huawei Sees 23% Growth in First Half of 2019 despite U.S. Ban

Expectations for Huawei's smartphone sales to dramatically drop have been high since its blacklist ban from the U.S. in May this year. However, the Chinese tech giant has surprised the industry, and especially those in Washington D.C.

RELATED: HUAWEI SAYS U.S. BLACKLIST IS "TRIAL BY LEGISLATION"

What did, in fact, happen? Huawei's revenues went up by 23 percent in the first half of the year. That means more than $58 billion. 

"Some impact" was felt on the business  

Liang Hua, Huawei's chairman, did say that "some impact on our business" was felt due to the U.S. blacklisting. This is mostly in respect to "intelligent computing and on our server and consumer business in non-China markets -- but generally, in the first half the impact has not been large."

LIVE: The 2019 H1 Business Results Press Conference https://t.co/CEnGuKIjuX

— Huawei (@Huawei) July 30, 2019

The blacklist's ban on the Shenzhen-based company was about blocking it from working with American software and hardware suppliers within the Android network, such as Google and Facebook, and that's where the largest impacts were felt. 

This was acknowledged by Liang, but he said that even with these bans, their international smartphone business had recovered by 80 percent to its pre-blacklist days.

Non-American business 

The European market and ongoing business have been a big help for Huawei's business. Their smartphone sales and their 28 contracts with 5G networking equipment in different countries on the continent have bolstered them up.

Huawei's China smartphone market share jumps as rivals lose ground: Canalys https://t.co/JsPyjz0AMF pic.twitter.com/HFy8oegNNU

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) July 30, 2019

Europe has remained a middle point between the U.S. and Huawei - pushing up the Chinese firm's sales as they deal with the ongoing American fight. 

The domestic market in China has also remained strong, with 40 percent of the country's smartphones being Huawei ones. This is a huge number when thinking in Chinese population standards. 

#Huawei has secured 50 commercial #5G contracts and has shipped more than 150,000 5G base stations to markets around the world, the company said Tuesday. pic.twitter.com/fRPgwt5Prm

— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) July 30, 2019

"Revenue grew fast up through May," said Liang, as published online. "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. That's not to say we don't have difficulties ahead. We do, and they may affect the pace of our growth in the short term."

He added, "But we will stay the course. We are fully confident in what the future holds, and we will continue investing as planned – including a total of CNY120 billion in R&D this year. We'll get through these challenges, and we're confident that Huawei will enter a new stage of growth after the worst of this is behind us."

As the battle between the U.S. and Huawei continues on, only time will tell what the second half of the year will bring for the Chinese tech giant.