China’s Huawei, the world’s third-largest smartphone maker, reported a 25 percent jump in 2018 net profit, despite the cloud of suspicion over the company after calls to ban its products from the U.S. and its allies. Ed Giles reports.
Chinese telecoms giant Huawei posted a huge jump in net profit for 2018 Friday (March 29).
That’s despite the cloud of suspicion over the company after calls to ban its products from the U.S. and its allies.
Huawei reported a 25 percent jump in profit from the year thanks to a strong showing within China, and booming sales of its smartphones.
It’s good news for the company as it faces global political pressure.
Washington claims Huawei’s mobile and networking technology could be used for Chinese espionage.
U.S. ally Australia’s banned Huawei products from being used to build next-generation 5G networks.
But the company has repeatedly said Beijing has no influence over it.
The UK rebuked Huawei in a report this week, saying the company’s failed to fix long-standing security flaws in its network gear.
But Huawei’s rotating chairman repeated the company’s assertion on Friday, that their technology is not compromised.
Huawei rotating chairman, Guo Ping, when asked about concerns expressed by the UK government about Huawei, saying:
“The oversight board report explains that Huawei equipment has no back door. At the same time Huawei has opened its front door by providing our source code for testing.”
The profit jump follows success for Huawei the year before, when revenue soared by 28 percent.
Over 100 journalists attended Friday’s press conference, that’s far more media attention than previous years.
One senior executive told Reuters they weren’t worried about the US-led pressure on Huawei, saying it was unlikely that many countries aside from Australia would follow the U.S. lead.
He even gave the U.S. some credit, thanking Washington for giving Huawei so much free advertising.