Huawei Adds Up The US Ban Impact And It Isn't Pretty
Though it was obvious that Huawei's blacklisting in the US would have a negative impact on it, thus far, the company hasn't given us a clear idea of just how much of a setback it is. Today that all changed, with Huawei cutting revenue projections based on the hit it expects from the ban. In doing so, Huawei indicated that it's taking a pretty big blow by finding itself at the center of this trade war between the US and China.
Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei expects revenue for 2019 to drop by $30 billion. Ever since news of Huawei's blacklisting came down the line, the company has been talking about some fallback measures it supposedly has in place – specifically, Huawei claims that it'll have its own mobile OS ready to go in a matter of months if it can't successfully argue its case and get the ban reversed. With the impact of the US ban now quantified to some extent, the need for those in-house fallbacks becomes even more clear.
Even though $30 billion is a huge amount of money regardless of how you slice it, it doesn't exactly put Huawei in dire straits just yet. Reuters reports that Huawei expects to pull in $100 billion in revenue this year, which is down from initial targets of $125-$130 billion.
Still, the effects of the ban are being felt, with Ren saying that Huawei's international phone shipments are down 40% and another executive clarifying that sharp drop occurred only over the past month. Huawei expects its business to recover in 2021, but didn't give details on what needs to happen between now and then to achieve that goal.
Meanwhile, Huawei is launching the Honor 20 in the midst of this trade war between the US and China. An Honor spokesperson said that the Honor 20 will go on sale in the UK on June 21st while noting that the Honor 20 Pro managed to move 1 million units in China over the course of 14 days. That same spokesperson said that the Honor 20 Pro "will be soon available in overseas market," so we'll keep an eye out for more information on that.