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Struggling Huawei moves focus to other connected devices, enterprise market amid US trade sanctions
- Huawei expects its focus on other connected devices and the enterprise market to help bolster its sanctions-hit operations
- Revenue from Huawei’s so-called 8+N business helped offset a decline in smartphone sales last year
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Huawei Technologies Co, once the world’s biggest smartphone vendor, is focusing on other connected devices and the enterprise market amid its struggles with US trade sanctions, which the Biden administration has recently tightened.
Shenzhen-based Huawei, however, could still face restricted access to products and services related to those market segments because of Washington’s hardline stance on the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker, according to analysts.
The privately held company, which was added to Washington’s trade blacklist in 2019, is trying to overcome adversity through its so-called 1+8+N strategy, which rotating chairman Ken Hu Houkun credited on Wednesday with helping bolster sales in a year when the firm recorded its slowest revenue growth in a decade.
“I believe you will see more hardware products, software and services from Huawei,” Hu said at a press conference in Shenzhen, where he described the development of an ecosystem of digital offerings beyond the smartphone. “Revenue from our 8+N business helped us offset some of the impact [from the decline in smartphone sales].”
Introduced in 2019, Huawei’s 1+8+N refers to smartphones as the first numeral in the strategy. The numeral 8 includes other connected devices including Huawei’s lines of laptop computers, tablets, smartwatches, earphones and smart televisions.
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