Chinese tech giant Huawei appears to have exceeded expectations in 2024, reporting annual revenue of over 860 billion yuan ($118.27 billion). This represents a 22% year-over-year increase, which is impressive despite ongoing U.S. sanctions designed to restrict its access to advanced semiconductor technology and global markets.
A key driver of Huawei’s financial success has been the revival of its consumer business, particularly in the smartphone sector. The company made a strong comeback in the Chinese market, largely fueled by the release of smartphones featuring domestically produced chipsets — a major win considering the U.S. export restrictions. According to Canalys, Huawei managed to capture a 16% share of China’s smartphone market last year, and surpassed Apple in domestic sales.
Beyond mobile devices, Huawei’s smart car solutions unit also contributed significantly to its revenue growth. The company forged partnerships with Chinese automakers, providing autonomous driving software, in-car operating systems, and advanced chips to power next-generation electric vehicles.
Huawei also continued to expand its presence in artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing, competing with global tech giants in AI-driven infrastructure and enterprise solutions. The company recently announced that its Ascend AI GPUs will support DeepSeek’s R1 large language model (LLM), marking a significant development in China’s AI hardware landscape. This integration will allow the R1 model to run efficiently on Huawei’s Ascend platform, reducing reliance on Western technologies. The R1 model was initially trained using over two thousand Nvidia H800 GPUs, but inference tasks can now be performed on Huawei’s Ascend 910C chips.
According to AI industry expert Yuchen Jin, the Ascend 910C achieves approximately 60% of the performance of Nvidia’s H100 GPU during inference, with potential for higher performance through optimization.
This move is part of a broader trend among Chinese tech companies to adopt domestic AI solutions. Firms such as Moore Threads and Hygon Information Technology have announced support for DeepSeek’s models using their AI chips. Huawei, in collaboration with AI infrastructure startup SiliconFlow, is integrating DeepSeek’s models into its Ascend cloud service. Major cloud service providers such as Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent have also made DeepSeek’s models available, signaling a significant shift in China’s AI industry toward self-reliance and reduced dependence on the west.
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