Huawei Sales Tumble as Buyers Flee From Chinese Tech Giant

The Trump-era bans on Huawei continue to decimate China’s one-time smartphone leader Huawei.

More than two years since Donald Trump’s administration blacklisted Huawei, the Chinese giant has reported its largest-ever revenue drop, over 29 percent, for the first half of 2021, reads a new report from CNBC.

The Chinese tech giant also experienced a 38 percent decline in sales during the three months ending in June.

Huawei’s revenue for the first half fell to 320.4 billion yuan ($49.56 billion USD). Not surprisingly, the biggest fall was in the consumer business group that once represented more than half its business. The segment, which includes the company’s phones, declined 47 percent to 135.7 billion yuan.

Eric Xu, Huawei-s rotating chairman, said in a statement that the company had set its strategic goals for the next five years.

“These have been challenging times,” he said in a statement Friday. “Our aim is to survive, and to do so sustainably. Despite a decline in revenue from our consumer business caused by external factors, we are confident that our carrier and enterprise businesses will continue to grow steadily.”

It took a while for Huawei to feel the effects of being placed on the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) Entity List in May 2019, preventing it from accessing American-made technology or dealing with companies that use US tools or designs, including TSMC, without a license.

But even within China, where many Google apps have long been blocked, Huawei’s handset business is sinking quickly. In the latest quarter, for the first time in over seven years, Huawei was not one of China’s five best-selling phone brands, according to the market research firm Canalys. The top five, in order, were Vivo, Oppo, Xiaomi, Apple, and Honor.

Honor had been a Huawei brand until it was spun out late last year to put it out of reach of the U.S. restrictions. That contributed to the drop in Huawei’s smartphone revenue, a company spokesman said.

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