Huawei sees revenue decline over sale of Honor budget smartphone unit

China’s Huawei Technologies saw revenue fall 16.5 percent in the first quarter compared to a year earlier, hurt by a dip in sales after selling its budget smartphone unit Honor in November, Report informs referring to Reuters.

Revenues were 23.46 billion in the first quarter, it said on April 28.

But net profit margin rose 3.8 percentage points compared to a year earlier to 11.1 percent, it said, as the company cut costs and received a boost from $600 million in royalty payments.

“2021 will be a challenging year for us, but it’s also the year that our future development strategy will begin to take shape,” Huawei’s rotating chairman Eric Xu said in the statement.

Huawei was put on an export blacklist by former US President Donald Trump in 2019 and barred from accessing critical technology of US origin, affecting its ability to design its own chips and source components from outside vendors.

The ban put Huawei’s once lucrative handset business under immense pressure, prompting the sale of its Honor budget smartphone unit to a group of agents and dealers in November.