China's Huawei 2024 profit drops; revenue rises at fastest rate in five years
By Che Pan and David Kirton
BEIJING/SHENZHEN (Reuters) -China's Huawei Technologies said on Monday its profit fell by over a quarter in 2024 versus a year prior when income from the sale of its Honor handset unit provided an earnings boost, while its revenue grew at the fastest rate in five years.
Net profit tumbled 28% to 62.6 billion yuan ($8.63 billion), which a company spokesperson attributed to heavy investment into research and development - reaching 179.7 billion yuan or about 20% of revenue - and not receiving any income from unit sales.
Huawei sold its budget smartphone unit Honor to a Shenzhen government consortium in 2020 after U.S. sanctions limited its access to high-end chips and services from Alphabet's Google, with payments boosting profit in subsequent years.
The Shenzhen-based firm reported 862.1 billion yuan in 2024 revenue, up 22.4% from 2023, with information and communication technology infrastructure contributing most to the figure, growing 4.9% to 369.9 billion yuan, Huawei said in a statement.
Its gross profit margin in 2024 was 44.4%, down from 46.2% in 2023.
Last year was the third successive year of growth since revenue tanked nearly a third in 2021 amid intensified U.S. curbs on access to advanced chips due to security concerns. It also came close to its 2020 peak of 891.3 billion yuan.
Revenue from Huawei's consumer segment - which includes smartphones and other digital gadgets - rose 38% to 339 billion yuan, the second-highest growth across its five major segments.
Huawei's intelligent automotive solutions unit - which helps traditional automakers make smart cars - saw revenue jump by more than 4.5 times to 26.4 billion yuan. It also eked out a profit for the first time last year.
In a press release, Huawei's rotating chairwoman and chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, said the results were in line with forecasts.
"In 2024, the entire team at Huawei banded together to tackle a wide range of external challenges," Meng said, adding that Huawei devices are back in the fast lane.
Huawei said it will continue to open up its platform capabilities to ecosystem partners and provide developers with tools and products in domains including its HarmonyOS, Kunpeng, Ascend and cloud computing products.
Huawei has emerged as a centre for Chinese technological innovation in chips and operating systems amid a Sino-U.S. tech war, with its executives previously saying that U.S. action had pushed the company into "survival mode".
The company has in past months struck a more confident tone, with founder Ren Zhengfei telling Chinese President Xi Jinping in May that concerns China had about a lack of home-grown chips and operating systems had eased.
($1 = 7.2503 Chinese yuan renminbi)
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