Huawei reported on Wednesday its first quarter sales were down 16.5% compared to last year, but an expected result.
Revenue for the Chinese giant was reported at 152 billion yuan, with its carrier business remaining steady, and its consumer business seeing sales decrease thanks to selling off its Honor brand last year.
While revenue was down, margin was up thanks to a $600 million patent royalty, and “ongoing efforts to improve quality of operations and management efficiency”, the company said.
“2021 will be another challenging year for us, but it’s also the year that our future development strategy will begin to take shape,” Huawei rotating chair Eric Xu said.
“No matter what challenges come our way, we will continue to maintain our business resilience. Not just to survive, but do so sustainably.”
Speaking at the company’s recent analyst summit through an interpreter, Xu said many other Chinese companies might be worried that what happened to Huawei in regards to US sanctions might happen to them. He said he hoped Huawei’s suppliers could produce chipsets that were not subject to US intervention.
Xu said he did not expect Huawei to be removed from the US Entity List, and its overall strategy was to survive this extremely difficult period.
Across the sea in Japan, Sony reported its full year results on Wednesday, with sales increasing 9% to just shy of 9 trillion yen, and net income increasing 590 billion yen to 1.17 trillion yen. For the fourth quarter, sales increased 27% to 2.2 trillion yen, and net income rose 94 billion yen to 107 billion yen.
Sony said its gaming business contributed an extra 679 billion yen in sales to 2.66 trillion across the year, thanks to the launch of the PlayStation 5.
Headed in the other direction were its electronic products, and imaging and sensing businesses. The former reported a 70.5 billion yen decline in sales to 1.92 trillion yen, while the latter saw a 58 billion drop to 1 trillion yen across the year.
Due to a reduction of costs in its mobile communications business, which is responsible for its smartphones, operating income was positive at 28 billion despite a slight drop in sales across the year to 359 billion yen.
Sony said it expects image sensor sales to increase in the next year for both smartphones and digital cameras.
