BEIJING, October 30 (TMTPost)— Huawei Technologies Ltd posted robust growth of profit this year, highlighting sales boom of smartphones as 5G comeback.

Credit：Visual China

Huawei said revenue of RMB456.6 billion (US$62.4 billion in the first three quarters of 2023, rising 2.4% from a year ago. The yearly increase is the highest for the period since 2020. However, the revenue suggested a 1.5% year-over-year (YoY) increase in the third quarter alone, slowing down from the 4.8% growth in the previous quarter, which setting the largest yearly increase only the fourth quarter of 2022.

Huawei remained momentum at the bottom line with gross margin of 16% in three quarters ended September 30, versus 15% of margin in the first half of the year. Profit in the third quarter jumped 177.8% YoY to RMB73.05 billion, according to Reuters calculations. That growth seems not as shockingly impressive as the mid year. Net income in the second quarter nearly tripled YoY to RMB26.8 billion, Bloomberg calculated previously.

The financial results during first nine months were in line with the company’s forecast, said Huawei’s rotating chairman Hu Houkun, or Ken Hu. "Looking forward, we will continue to ramp up research and development (R&D) investments, play the advantage of company’s industrial portfolio, keep improving competitiveness of products and services, and create more value for customers, partners and the society," Hu said.

Increase in the profit resulted from payments related to Huawei's sale of its Honor smartphone unit in November 2020, along with management and sales strategy improvements, a Huawei spokesperson said. The spokesperson didn’t mention any impact of Mate 60 series, the latest flagship smartphone that Huawei released later in the third quarter, while the industry and the third party data signaled smartphone is set to be a key driver for Huawei in the coming quarters.

Smartphone sales in China dropped 3% YoY in the third quarter, but Huawei became the big winner, growing 37% YoY on the back of its newly launched Mate 60 series, which is powered by its SoC Kirin 9000S, Counterpoint Research estimated last Thursday. The global market research firm in the TMT industry believed Chinese mobile market could be closer to bottoming out as sales decline in the third quarter narrowed sequentially. Its senior analyst Ivan Lam commented that although the Mate 60’s sales are under the Pioneer Program and mostly carried out through the brand’s offline and online channels, the product has quickly garnered massive attention. “Huawei is striving to ramp up production to catch up with the demand,” Lam said.

Huawei has sold 1.6 million Mate 60 Pro handsets in six weeks despite slowdown in the smartphone market, Counterpoint Research estimated more than a week earlier. Counterpoint added that more than 400,000 units out of the aforementioned sales were sold in the past two weeks, when Apple launched its latest mobile iPhone 15 on mainland China.

The Wall Street predicted upbeat sales of Mate. Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan expected Mate 60 could pose an opportunity for Huawei to regain market share if it's able to supply and scale the homegrown Kirin 9000S chip. The shipment plan of Mate 60 Pro has increased by about 20% to 5.5 million to 6 million units as the demand for the device has been strong since inception, said TF International Securities analyst Ming Chi Kuo in September.  

Kuo, as one of the most reliable sources of data on Apple products, anticipated that Huawei’s mobile delivery in 2023 will increase about 65% from last year to 38 million units, driven by demand for Mate 60 Plus, and its delivery in 2024 is expected to be no less than 60 million.

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