Huawei Chairman expects a difficult 2020 as the company forecasts an 18% growth in revenue in 2019

As companies begin publishing figures for their revenue in 2019, Huawei Technologies has claimed that they are expecting to round off on $121.72 billion in revenue, an 18% increase compared to 2018.  The company still hasn’t completed its fourth quarter for 2019 yet but the estimated figure is lower than their previous forecasts.

Company reps claim that this is because of the U.S.- China trade war and trade blacklisting in the U.S. Reportedly, the trade conditions have significantly hindered growth and prevented the outsourcing of several processes/components for Huawei.

U.S Says Huawei Is A Security Threat

Huawei is currently the largest telecommunications equipment provider and the second-largest globally in the league of smartphone manufacturers. However, trade was hindered between Huawei and American companies as early as May 2019. Moreover, the company was also prevented from access to the world-renowned Google Android operating system.

Allegedly, U.S. government officials have stated that Huawei’s products are against national security interests as the Chinese government can use them to spy and invade the privacy of users. However, Huawei denies all such claims and allegations.

The 18% growth spurt expected at the end of fiscal 2019 is less than the 19% growth achieved in 2018. Unfortunately, the company’s Chairman Eric Xui is not too optimistic about 2020 and has gone as far as calling it probably “a difficult year”.

Huawei’s Revenue Growth Is Slowing Quickly

Huawei posted a year over year growth of 3.9% in the fourth quarter of 2019. However, the gain was insignificant when compared to the massive 27% that it noted in the third quarter as compared to the same quarter last year.

Representatives claim that the global environment is very risky and pressure from the U.S. government is resulting in a downward spiral. Such factors are contributing to making it increasingly difficult for Huawei to thrive, as per the internal sources.

Huawei did manage to export 20% more smartphones than last year – totalling to approximately 240 million. However, most of these sales were pre-ban.

The latest Huawei device, the Mate 30, does not have access to the Google Android system because of the trade war. The phone has been on sale since September but is not faring well because of this.

This year, 2020, is likely to be a trademark year for the firm as it begins to develop its own cloud storage and app gallery system in order to compete with Google and properly remain in business outside of China. Moreover, a mobile operating system called Harmony is also in progress, though analysts do not seem to be very enthusiastic about it yet.

Huawei has been in the news for several reasons in 2019 and most of them have been negative. The company says that they are working on strengthening their team and will be replacing employees/ managers who perform in the bottom 10%.