Figures out today show that revenue for 2021 was 636.8 billion Chinese yen (US$ 99.9 billion at current rates), but this is well down on the 891.4 billion yen revenue for 2020.
That is an annual fall in revenue of 28.5%. And the last time Huawei’s revenue was this low was 2017.
Guo Ping, Huawei’s rotating chairman, said this morning: “Overall, our performance was in line with forecast. Our carrier business remained stable, our enterprise business experienced steady growth, and our consumer business quickly expanded into new domains. In addition, we embarked on a fast track of ecosystem development.”
He was accompanied at the announcement in Shenzhen by Meng Wanzhou (pictured), Huawei’s CFO, who flew home from Canada in September after successfully fighting extradition to the US.
“Despite a revenue decline in 2021, our ability to make a profit and generate cash flows is increasing, and we are more capable of dealing with uncertainty,” she said.
Huawei said its operating profit in 2021 was 121.4 billion yen ($19.0 billion), a margin of 19.1%.
In previous years, from 2017 to 2020, profit was 56.4 billion, 73.3 billion, 77.8 billion and 72.5 billion yen.
Huawei said that, “thanks to the enhanced profitability of its major businesses, the company’s cash flow from operating activities dramatically increased in 2021”.
It said its carrier business generated 281.5 billion yen ($44.2 billion) in revenue in 2021. However, the carrier business was down 7% on 2020, while consumer business – hurt by the company’s loss of access to apps on the Google Playstore as well as by embargoes, was down 49.1%. The enterprise business, however, was up by 2.1%.
