Huawei hit the accelerator in 2023

Huawei's 2023 financial results suggest that the Chinese tech giant has moved past the bans on the sale of its equipment in major western markets and has returned to financial stability with its fastest growth in years.

In its 2023 annual report, Huawei said performance was in line with forecast, generating  CNY704.2bn ($99.45bn) in revenue and CNY87bn ($12.29bn) in net profits. Drilling deeper into business lines, the report noted that throughout the past year, Huawei's ICT infrastructure business remained solid, and its consumer business met expectations. Interestingly, given its recent activity in Middle East and North Africa (MENA), in particular moving its MENA regional centre to Saudi Arabia, Huawei’s cloud computing and digital power businesses grew steadily and its intelligent automotive solution business began large-scale delivery.

In 2023, the ICT infrastructure business generated CNY362bn, up 2.3% year-on-year (YoY) while the consumer business recorded sales of CNY251.5bn, up 17.3% on an annual basis. The cloud computing business brought in CNY55.3bn, up 21.9% compared with the previous year. The digital power business earned CNY52.6bn and the intelligent automotive solution business generated CNY4.7bn, up 3.5% and 128.1% YoY respectively.

Maintaining its fundamental approach of heavily backing research and innovation, the company invested CNY164.7bn back into R&D in 2023, which accounted for 23.4% of its annual revenue. Huawei emphasised that altogether, the company's R&D investment over the past decade amounts to CNY1.11tn.

Going forward, Huawei said it would keep investing in open innovation to advance technology and help different industries modernise. Furthermore, the company said that it was committed to “succeeding through quality” and that it would “work hard” to make quality one of its core competitive strengths. Noting its engagement with 9.5 million developers and 46,000 ecosystem partners around the world, Huawei said that it was advocating strongly for open collaboration and “helping others succeed”.

With this approach, the company said that it would continue to focus on developing core ICT technologies, as well as building up platform capabilities for complex hardware and “sophisticated” software systems. Huawei said it would open up to partners to promote shared success.

"The company's performance in 2023 was in line with forecast. We've been through a lot over the past few years. But through one challenge after another, we've managed to grow. The trust and support of our customers, partners, and friends around the world is what helped us keep going, keep surviving, and keep growing," said Ken Hu, Huawei's rotating chairman, commenting on the results.

"A new journey awaits us in 2024. We will create greater value for our customers and society by driving open innovation, building thriving ecosystems, and succeeding through quality. I'd like to thank those who have joined us – and will join us – along the way. Together, let's make something extraordinary. Let's build a fully connected, intelligent world."