Chinese telecom giant Huawei revenue surges despite U.S. sanctions

BEIJING — Chinese telecommunications and smartphone giant Huawei continues to grow and take market share from Apple, despite U.S. restricting the company’s access to high-end technology.

Huawei’s revenue exceeded 860 billion yuan ($118.27 billion) in 2024, Chairman Howard Liang said Wednesday, according to local state media. Huawei did not comment when contacted by CNBC.

That’s a 22% jump in revenue from 2023, and the fastest growth since a 32% increase in 2016, according to CNBC calculations of publicly released figures. Huawei typically publishes its annual reports in March.

Liang, speaking at a local government conference, described Huawei’s consumer business as “returning to growth” and car solutions business as seeing “rapid development,” according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese-language report. He said Huawei’s ICT business — which has been the largest segment by revenue — “remained stable.”

Since 2019, the U.S. has restricted Huawei’s ability to access technology from American suppliers, from advanced 5G chips to Google’s Android operating system.

Huawei’s revenue barely grew in 2020, and plunged by nearly 29% in 2021. Its consumer segment was hit hard, and even as revenue rose 17% year on year to 251.5 billion yuan in 2023, it was just over half of what the unit generated at its peak in 2020.

Huawei’s smartphone shipments in mainland China surged by 37% last year, climbing from fourth to second place by market share, while Apple fell to third place with a 17% drop, according to Canalys data. Vivo, known for its budget-priced devices, ranked first by market share in 2024, the data showed.

The telecommunications company started to make a comeback in the smartphone market in 2023 with the release of its Mate 60 Pro in China. Reviews indicated the device offers download speeds associated with 5G — thanks to an advanced semiconductor chip.

Just over a year later, Huawei launched the Mate 70 smartphone series that uses the company’s first fully self-developed operating system, HarmonyOS NEXT.