Huawei’s profit fell nearly 70 per cent for the full year of 2022.
“As a company, we have no capability to change the geopolitics or the environment, we can only adapt to that environment,” chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou said at the company’s annual report press conference last month.
Huawei is still scrambling to adapt its production of smartphones and telecoms network equipment to the “new normal” of trade restrictions, which were tightened by Washington in 2020. The sanctions cover Huawei’s access to advanced semiconductors developed or produced using US technology, from anywhere.
Huawei has stepped up development of domestic replacements for electronic components, an effort which began a decade ago, long before it was sanctioned by the US, according to Eric Xu, a rotating chairman, at last month’s conference.
In the chip design area, Huawei’s in-house “fabless” chip company HiSilicon once led in China. Huawei claimed that it has “basically achieved domestic” electronic design automation (EDA) software capability for chips above the 14-nanometre process node, without providing details. It aims to finish testing these design tools in 2023.
Huawei recently announced that it has switched to its self-developed enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
The report adds to the challenges for Meng – daughter of founder Ren – who took over Huawei as rotating chairwoman starting this month, as she seeks to find new revenue streams for the company.
