Huawei revealed limited financials for the first quarter of 2020, claiming operations are continuing as usual and flat revenue growth is in line with expectations given the significant impact of Covid-19 (coronavirus).

Total revenue edged up only 1.4 per cent year-on-year in Q1 to CNY182.2 billion ($25.75 billion), with its net profit margin slipping to 7.3 per cent from 8 per cent in Q1 2019. In the opening quarter of 2019 revenue grew 39 per cent to CNY179.7 billion.

While the Shenzhen-based company didn’t reveal net profit or breakout revenue by business group for the quarter, it said in a statement device sales grew rapidly in the first quarter in line with expectations. The vendor noted it prepared enough devices to ensure supply stability and is confident it will achieve its annual targets.

It added its device shipments were much higher than the market average in the January to March period and expects its global smartphone market share to increase, noting Canalys predicted global smartphone shipments in Q1 to likely fall by nearly 20 per cent year-on-year.

Domestic recovery
With the pandemic spreading in waves, revenue in China recovered in March as the situation improved, but the company is still seeing a decline in sales in markets outside the mainland.

Huawei acknowledged the pandemic has affected everything, including global deployments of 5G services and is assisting operators to address this challenge.

In late March, CEO and founder Ren Zhengfei said more than 90 per cent of its 150,000 domestic employees were back at work, with some of its operations resuming in early February after a government ruling allowed certain critical industries to restart despite a wider shutdown.

As Covid-19 continues to spread, Huawei said it is taking proactive measures to ensure the safety of employees by coordinating infection prevention and control measures across all factories and ramping up efforts to support suppliers.

Huawei reported at end-March net profit in 2019 increased 5.6 per cent year-on-year to CNY62.7 billion on revenue of CNY858.8 billion, up 19.1 per cent.