Chinese telecom and consumer electronics giant, Huawei Technologies, has released its financial report for the first half of 2016. According to the report, the company’s revenues for the first six months of this year has risen by a whopping 40% to 245.5 billion yuan ($36.8 billion) from 175.6 billion yuan ($26.2 billion) for the same period in 2015. Operating margins, however, fell to 12% from a high of 18% during the corresponding period last year. What will be heartening for Huawei’s shareholders is the company’s revenue projection going forward. While there was no detailed revenue guidance released per se, Huawei’s chief financial officer, Ms. Sabrina Meng, said in a brief statement that the company expects to “maintain its current momentum” for the rest of the year. The company had earlier set itself a revenue target of $75 billion for 2016.
While Huawei’s network equipment business has seen an uptick in recent times thanks to the continuing rollout of 4G LTE networks by various wireless carriers around the world, its smartphone business, too, has grown in leaps and bounds, thanks in large parts to the ‘Honor’ sub-brand that has reportedly been doing pretty well in many markets around the world. What’s also worth noting is that the company’s sales in China in recent times has gone through the roof, helping it replace Xiaomi as the nation’s largest smartphone vendor. Huawei’s recent success has meant that even though the global smartphone business has been showing signs of a slowdown, the company has not only been able to hold its own, but actually increase its market share even in this current ultra-competitive environment.
Huawei recently signed an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with American multinational conglomerate, General Electric (GE), for development of industrial IoT (Internet of Things) products. The company launched its narrowband IoT solution at the Mobile World Congress event in Shanghai earlier this month, and announced that it would launch a commercial IoT offering later this year. It remains to be seen if Huawei can indeed maintain its momentum going forward, but the company recently announced that its Electric Power IoT solutions are already gaining traction in finance, power, transport, public security, education and media. That being the case, Huawei does seem well-positioned to take advantage of the expected IoT revolution in the near future.