The Huawei booth at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in 2025.
Arjun Kharpal | CNBC
Huawei reported Monday that its core telecommunications and consumer business accelerated, causing its 2024 revenue to skyrocket.
Huawei reported 2024 revenues of 862.1 billion Chinese Yuan ($118.2 billion), up 22.4% year-on-year.
According to CNBC’s calculations, this is the company’s second-highest revenue figure, slightly shy of its 2020 record 891.4 billion yuan.
However, net profit fell to 62.6 billion yuan, down 28% from 2023. Huawei said this was the result of an increase in investment.
It comes when Chinese technology giants try to adapt their businesses to deal with US sanctions that limit access to key technologies such as semiconductors.
Huawei spent 179.7 billion yuan on research and development, equivalent to 20.8% of its revenue. This exceeds the 2023 R&D figure of R&D 164.7 billion. Huawei diversifies its business in areas such as AI, cloud computing, and automotive technology data centers.
Huawei’s sales last year were driven by two biggest companies, ICT infrastructure and consumer, accounting for around 82% of the company’s total revenue.
Revenue in the ICT infrastructure sector, including its carrier business, rose 4.9% year-on-year to 369.9 billion yuan. This is Revenue, the largest business at Shenzhen’s headquarters. Huawei is one of the world’s largest telecom equipment companies, and the company said the large-scale deployment of next-generation 5G networks has driven growth.
The company also said 2024 was the first year of commercial deployment of next-generation networks called 5.5g or 5G Advanced, which also helped to boost sales.
China Smartphone Revival
Huawei’s consumer business also helped its revenue figures. The consumer business achieved a sharp acceleration with a 38.3% increase from the growth seen last year, with sales of 339 billion yuan.
Huawei, once the world’s largest smartphone player, has seen the smartphone business particularly crushed by US sanctions. Restricted access to key chips and Google software.
However, since the end of 2023, a semiconductor breakthrough in China has allowed Huawei to reorganize and release its highly-selling luxury phones.
In 2024, Huawei smartphone shipments in China increased 37% year-on-year, but according to Canalys data, market share rose to 16% from 12% in 2023. This was a victim applemarket share declined and freight declined.
Huawei has actively launched its first-ever premium smartphone, including the TRIFOLD handset, and has also launched a device that is slowly renewing overseas.
Meanwhile, Huawei released Harmonyos 5 in 2024. This is the first version of a self-developed mobile operating system that is reportedly not using open source code for Google Android.
Still, analysts told CNBC that Huawei’s overseas outlook is a challenge given the ongoing limitations when accessing the most cutting-edge chips, such as those found on Apple and Samsung devices, given the lack of access to Android, running on most smartphones around the world.
New Business Focus
To mitigate some of the effects of US sanctions over the past few years, Huawei has pushed it into new areas, such as the digital power sector, which focuses on local energy infrastructures such as electric vehicles and renewable energy.
This segment is still a very new business, with revenues increasing by 24.4% to 68.7 billion yuan.
Meanwhile, cloud computing revenues rose 8.5% year-on-year.
Huawei’s smallest company, known as Intelligent Automotive Solution, reported a revenue increase of 474.4% to 26.4 billion yuan compared to the previous year. Huawei develops in-vehicle software and driver assistance systems for third-party automakers.
