China’s Huawei reports quarterly revenue drop as smartphone income hit

SHENZHEN, China (Reuters) – China’s Huawei Technologies saw revenue fall 16.5% in the first quarter compared to a year earlier, hurt by a dip in sales after selling its budget smartphone unit Honor in November.

Revenues were 152.2 billion yuan ($23.46 billion) in the first quarter, it said on Wednesday.

But net profit margin rose 3.8 percentage points compared to a year earlier to 11.1%, it said, as the company cut costs and received a boost from $600 million in royalty payments.

“2021 will be a challenging year for us, but it’s also the year that our future development strategy will begin to take shape,” Huawei’s rotating chairman Eric Xu said in the statement.