On Friday, Chinese telecommunication equipment manufacturer Huawei released its financial results for 2017.  The company’s total annual revenue was CNY603.6 billion (US$92.5 billion based on year-end exchange rates), an increase of 15.7% over 2016. Net profits were CNY47.5 billion (US$7.3 billion), an increase of 28.1% year-on-year, largely thanks to cost-controls.

“We’re on a new journey,” said Ken Hu, Huawei’s Rotating Chairman. “Opportunities and challenges are popping up faster than ever before, and nonstop open innovation is the only way we can keep ahead of the game. Over the next 10 years, Huawei will continue to increase investment in technological innovation, investing more than 10 billion dollars back into R&D every year. We will actively pursue open collaboration, attract and cultivate top talent, and step up efforts in exploratory research. We want to better enable all industries to go digital and intelligent.”.

Huawei’s Enterprise business group grew in cloud, big data, campus networks, data centers, IoT, and other domains. In 2017, Huawei’s enterprise business generated CNY54.9 billion (US$8.4 billion) in annual revenue, a huge increase of 35.1% compared with 2016. In the consumer business, Huawei shipped a total of 153 million smartphones in 2017, and reported CNY237.2 billion (US$36.4 billion) in annual revenue, up 31.9% year-on-year.  Huawei is the world’s third largest cellphone manufacturer, behind Apple and Samsung.

Carrier Services business was the laggard.  They generated CNY297.8 billion (US$45.7 billion) in revenue, a very modest increase of 2.5% year-on-year.  Telecom equipment makers have been seeing their carrier customers holding off on major purchases, in anticipation of next generation 5G wireless network rollouts in the coming years.

Even before the threat of a China-US trade war, US Carriers have largely shut out Huawei.  Not surprisingly, revenue from the Americas dropped 11% to CNY29 billion ($8 billion).

For Huawei’s 2017 results, see http://www.huawei.com/en/press-events/news/2018/3/Huawei-2017-Annual-Report