Donald Can’t Trump Huawei

Huawei has reportedly continued to barrel ahead with its smartphone shipments, forecasting a predicted growth of 20% despite efforts from the Trump administration to hinder the Chinese company.

As reported by Bloomberg, just six months out from the Washington ban on Huawei, the Chinese company is at a critical juncture in its fight to survive.

Will Zhang, president of corporate strategy, said that unlike Samsung, who can rely on its massive home market and in-house software division to stay alive, Huawei must re-focus itself outside of a set target of smartphone shipments.

Huawei is predicting a 20% smartphone shipment increase under a moderate scenario, with the best case scenario at 40%.

Currently, roughly half of the companies revenue is sourced from Huawei’s smartphone division which has continued at an ‘enviable pace’ in the face of its current ‘precarious situation’.

Billionaire founder Ren Zhengfei had initially predicted the Trump ban could remove US$30 billion (AU$44 billion) from his company’s revenue.

‘Now I think it’s less than US$10 billion.’

Edward Zhou, vice president at Huawei, echoed these comments saying they can ‘keep up’ their performance from last year, ‘even under such great pressure from the US government’.

It comes as Huawei shows strong performance as reported by ApplianceRetailer which revealed the company shipped its largest volume of smartphones for the first nine months of any year, with a total of 184.6 million units sent out.

In the domestic Chinese market, with IHS Markit Technology analysis director, Jusy Hong claiming smartphone shipments increased by 65% in Q3, which more than compensated for the US bans effect on sales.

Another aspect to the Trump ban is a ban on Huawei working with Google Mobile Services resulting in the company having to develop its own operating system called Harmony OS.

Google prohibition is being mitigated by Huawei, who offered $1.5 billion to global developers to create software for its own ecosystem.

Fortunately for Huawei, the Commerce’s Department may begin issuing licenses allowing US companies to deal with Huawei, following Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Bloomberg in an interview that they would arrive ‘very shortly’.

However, Ross warns that companies should assume they won’t get a license, despite receiving over 260 requests so far which was more than they expected.

Whether Google will be permitted to work with Huawei is still to be seen, however, the Chinese company must do its best to continue its performance and mitigate its reliance on US companies.