HONG KONG (AP) — Chinese telecoms gear company Huawei Technologies has reported its profit more than doubled last year as its cloud and digital businesses thrived in spite of U.S. sanctions.
The Shenzhen-based company reported a net profit of 87 billion yuan ($12 billion), helped by strong sales and an improved product portfolio. Revenue jumped nearly 10% from a year earlier, to 704.2 billion yuan ($97.4 billion).
Huawei’s rotating chairman Ken Hu said the company’s figures were in line with forecasts.
“We’ve been through a lot over the past few years. But through one challenge after another, we’ve managed to grow,” Hu said.
Huawei also said it profited from “gains from the sales of some businesses.” It did not specify which businesses were sold.
Huawei, one of China’s first global tech brands, has been caught up in China-U.S. tensions over technology and security.
The U.S. has banned U.S. companies from doing business with Huawei, cutting off its access to computer chips and software such as Google services for its smartphones and preventing it from selling its telecommunications gear to U.S. customers.
Washington says Huawei poses a threat to U.S. national security. Huawei denies that.
Huawei has refocused its business on cloud computing services and helping industries to shift to more digital operations.
Revenues from its cloud computing business grew almost 22% year-on-year in 2023 to 55.3 billion yuan ($7.7 billion). Sales for its digital power business grew 3.5%. Its automotive services related sales more than doubled.
Huawei’s consumer unit, which sells smartphones and other devices, posted a 17.3% jump in revenue in 2023.
Last year, Huawei launched its high-end Mate 60 smartphone line, powered by an advanced chip that it made together with China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC).
“In 2024, we will further expand our presence in the high-end market by working with ecosystem partners worldwide to bring more innovative products and services to consumers across the globe,” the company said in a statement to the AP.
The launch of the Mate 60 prompted speculation that Huawei and China may be able to produce 5G chips.
U.S. lawmakers later accused SMIC of violating U.S. sanctions by supplying chips to Huawei. Taiwan also launched an investigation into four local companies over reports that they helped Huawei in its chip efforts. Some of the companies said they were offering wastewater and environmental protection services unrelated to critical technology.
Huawei is one of the world’s biggest spenders in research and development. In 2023, it invested 164.7 billion yuan ($22.8 billion) into R&D, accounting for almost a quarter of its annual revenue. Just over half of Huawei’s 207,000 employees work in R&D.
FILE - A customer carries his purchased Huawei product outside a Huawei store after he attended the Huawei new product launch conference in Beijing, on Sept. 25, 2023. Chinese telecoms gear company Huawei Technologies has reported its profit more than doubled last year as its cloud and digital businesses thrived in spite of U.S. sanctions. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) — President Joe Biden on Thursday sought to sell voters on an American “comeback story” as he highlighted longterm investments in the economy in upstate New York to celebrate Micron Technology's plans to build a campus of computer chip factories made possible in part with government support.
Staring down a rematch with Republican Donald Trump, Biden was asking voters to buy into his vision of the future, at a moment when voters are most worried about enduring pressures from high inflation. The initial phase of New York project would open the first plant in 2028 and the second plant in 2029, with more time expected for the next two factories to be completed.
Biden was campaigning on a promise of better times ahead, just as Trump, the former president, often taps into a past when U.S. manufacturing was the world standard. The Democrat is trying to convince voters to think beyond their present circumstances at the ballot box.
“This is such a big deal,” Biden said. “We’re bringing advanced chip manufacturing back to America.”
He added: “It’s one of the most significant science and technology investments in our history."
It's far from a surefire message in an era of near-instant gratification. Compared to when Biden began in politics in the 1970s, people can immediately stream music and videos on their smart phones, order a pizza with finger swipe or text a friend thousands of miles away.
Trump, for his part, is telling voters that Biden's policies will hurt jobs tied to making gasoline-powered autos and ultimately send work to China. On Tuesday, he vented about how the rising value of the dollar against foreign currencies would hobble U.S. manufacturing by making American-made goods too costly.
“It sounds good to stupid people, but it is a disaster for our manufacturers and others,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “They are actually unable to compete and will be forced to either lose lots of business, or build plants, or whatever, in the 'smart' Countries.”
The former president at a recent Pennsylvania rally lamented the loss of factory jobs that once made the United States “the greatest country in the history of the world,” saying that the country has since “lost its confidence, willpower and sight.”
The Biden administration helped jumpstart the Micron project by agreeing to provide $6.1 billion in government support that will also cover a memory chip factory in Idaho that would be operating in 2026. The money also helps pay for the first two factories in Clay, New York, but not the second pair to be opened later. The funding is part of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act that, along with the administration's funding for renewable energy projects, has boosted factory construction spending to record levels.
There are also factories planned by Intel in Arizona and Ohio, TSMC in Arizona, Samsung in Texas and other chipmakers. Their efforts will power artificial intelligence and electric vehicles, among other technologies that Biden believes will cement America's position as the world's largest economy. Biden has gone to Arizona and Ohio to celebrate chip factories and previously went to New York in 2022 for the Micron project.
“American manufacturing is back,” Biden said Thursday. “New factories are going up across the country.”
Biden earlier toured mockups of the facility with New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, who called it the most exciting time in his four decades in the chipmaking industry.
For decades, voters have heard politicians pledging a manufacturing boom without much to show for it. Factory employment peaked in the late 1970s and has steadily drifted downward because of automation, outsourcing to cheap countries and the closures that come with each recession.
In celebrating the Micron project, Schumer noted that Trump, while president, famously told voters that electronics maker Foxconn would open a sprawling set of factories in Wisconsin.
At the time, Trump took a victory lap, saying that the Taiwan-headquartered company would be bringing manufacturing jobs to the United States.
“I will tell you they wouldn’t have done it here, except that I became president, so that’s good,” Trump said in June 2018.
That project notoriously flamed out, feeding a sense of cynicism about what the government can do. Microsoft agreed in 2023 to buy the land for a data center after Foxconn failed to deliver on its 13,000 promised jobs.
Schumer said an interview that voters will find that this time is different, predicting they will see the United States as pulling ahead of China on the technologies that are essential for national security and economic growth, allowing more jobs and needed technology to stay in America.
“We want to be proud of our economy and there was too much of a feeling that we were losing out to China and other countries,” Schumer said.
Biden in his remarks chided House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik and Republican Rep. Brandon Williams who represents the district for opposing the chips legislation when it passed Congress but now hails the investments it allows.
“I guess they’re not going to be here to celebrate," he quipped.
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the CHIPS and Science Act at the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Syracuse, N.Y. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the CHIPS and Science Act at the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Syracuse, N.Y. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the CHIPS and Science Act at the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Syracuse, N.Y. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the CHIPS and Science Act at the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Syracuse, N.Y. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul speaks before President Joe Biden arrives to deliver remarks on the CHIPS and Science Act at the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum in Syracuse, N.Y., Thursday, Apr. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the CHIPS and Science Act at the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum in Syracuse, N.Y., Thursday, Apr. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the CHIPS and Science Act at the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum in Syracuse, N.Y., Thursday, Apr. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the CHIPS and Science Act at the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum in Syracuse, N.Y., Thursday, Apr. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)
President Joe Biden, from left, walks with County Executive Ryan McMahon and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., as he arrives at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Syracuse, N.Y. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Joe Biden, from right, is greeted by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and County Executive Ryan McMahon, as he arrives at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Syracuse, N.Y. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Joe Biden, from third left, walks with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and County Executive Ryan McMahon as he arrives at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Syracuse, N.Y. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Joe Biden, from right, is greeted by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and County Executive Ryan McMahon, as he arrives at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Syracuse, N.Y. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the CHIPS and Science Act at the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Syracuse, N.Y. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Joe Biden speaks to the North America's Building Trade Union National Legislative Conference, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Joe Biden speaks to the North America's Building Trade Union National Legislative Conference, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
