SHANGHAI, Dec 30 (Reuters) – Chinese technology giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd ( HWT.UL ) estimated on Friday that its revenue in 2022 was flat, suggesting that its sales decline due to U.S. sanctions had stopped.
Despite sales increasing by just 0.02%, rotating chairman Eric Xu struck an upbeat tone in the company’s annual New Year’s letter, where he revealed the figure.
“US restrictions are now our new normal and we are returning to business as usual,” Xu wrote in a letter to staff and released to the media.
Revenue for the year is expected to be 636.9 billion yuan ($91.53 billion), according to Xu.
That represents a slight increase from 2021, when revenue reached 636.8 billion yuan and marked a 30% year-on-year sales decline when US sanctions took effect against the company.
Xu’s letter does not mention Huawei’s profitability. The company usually releases its full annual results in the first quarter of the following year.
Revenue for 2022 still remains well below the company’s record of $122 billion in 2019. At the time, the company was at its peak as the leading global vendor of Android smartphones.
In 2019, the U.S. Trump administration imposed a trade ban on Huawei, citing national security concerns, which barred the company from using Alphabet Inc’s ( GOOGL.O ) Android for its new smartphones, among other critical U.S.-sourced technologies.
Sanctions caused a sharp decline in mobile device sales. It also lost access to critical components that prevented it from designing its line of smartphone processors under the HiSilicon chip division.
The company continues to generate revenue through its network equipment division, which competes with Nokia ( NOKIA.HE ) and Ericsson ( ERICb.ST ). He also manages the cloud computing department.
The company started investing in the electric vehicle (EV) sector as well as green technologies around the time the sanctions took effect.
“The macro environment may be full of uncertainties, but what we can be sure of is that digitization and decarbonization are the way forward and hold future opportunities,” Xu said in the letter.
Reporting by Josh Horwitz; Editing: Muralikumar Anantharaman
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