China’s Huawei’s Handset Business Making a Comeback, Executive Says

 People visit a Huawei booth during the World Semiconductor Congress in Nanjing in China's eastern Jiangsu province on July 19, 2023. (AFP)
People visit a Huawei booth during the World Semiconductor Congress in Nanjing in China's eastern Jiangsu province on July 19, 2023. (AFP)
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China’s Huawei’s Handset Business Making a Comeback, Executive Says

 People visit a Huawei booth during the World Semiconductor Congress in Nanjing in China's eastern Jiangsu province on July 19, 2023. (AFP)
People visit a Huawei booth during the World Semiconductor Congress in Nanjing in China's eastern Jiangsu province on July 19, 2023. (AFP)

Huawei Technologies' handset business is "on the road to a comeback" the head of the company's consumer business Richard Yu said in his keynote at the company's annual developer conference in the southern city of Dongguan on Friday.

Huawei's share of the domestic smartphone market share grew by 76.1% in the second quarter, and took second spot in the high-end sector, Yu said.

The company held 11.3% of the overall China market in the second quarter, behind five competitors led by Vivo and Apple, according to Counterpoint Research.

Counterpoint attributed Huawei's growth to the resumption of normal product launches after resolving shortages.

Several rounds of US restrictions on US-made technology limited Huawei to producing last-generation 4G handsets, causing its once sizeable handset market share to plummet both at home and abroad.

The US and European governments have labelled Huawei a security risk, a charge the company denies.

Yu said Huawei's in-house Harmony operating system has "overcome many challenges" in the last four years, noting there were now 2.2 million developers for the system.

Last month research firms told Reuters they expect Huawei to return to making 5G smartphones by the end of the year by procuring chips domestically, in spite of the US restrictions.

Huawei declined to comment.



Nokia Joins Ericsson in Seeing Signs of Recovery after Mixed Results

FILE PHOTO: A Nokia logo is seen at company's headquarters in Espoo, Finland, May 5, 2017. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
FILE PHOTO: A Nokia logo is seen at company's headquarters in Espoo, Finland, May 5, 2017. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
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Nokia Joins Ericsson in Seeing Signs of Recovery after Mixed Results

FILE PHOTO: A Nokia logo is seen at company's headquarters in Espoo, Finland, May 5, 2017. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
FILE PHOTO: A Nokia logo is seen at company's headquarters in Espoo, Finland, May 5, 2017. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins

Finnish telecom equipment supplier Nokia on Thursday reported a 9% rise in third-quarter operating profit on cost cuts, and echoed rival Ericsson in seeing demand recovery in some areas.
However, quarterly net sales fell 8% to 4.33 billion euros ($4.70 billion), missing estimates of 4.76 billion euros due mainly to lower sales to India. That sent its shares down 3%, Reuters said.
Both Nokia and Ericsson said North America has started to show signs of growth after years of weakness, but Nokia's market share in the region had dropped after losing contracts with Verizon and AT&T over the years.
"We have seen a really bad cycle... Now that decline is over and it is starting to gradually recover, which is good, but it (telecom) will never be a huge growth market," CEO Pekka Lundmark said in an interview.
He cautioned that growth was happening more slowly than earlier expected.
"North America has started to show pretty good signs, and we had strong growth in Q3 in network infrastructure," Lundmark said.
Nokia's total addressable market in telecom stands at around $84 billion.
To look for growth, Nokia has been targeting the data center and defense sectors, splurging $2.3 billion to buy US optical networking gear maker Infinera in June to target data center operators.
"That's where the growth will come from, and that growth is starting already," Lundmark said.
Demand from Indian clients, which has dropped significantly this year, is also recovering after Nokia last month got a big contract from Vodafone Idea and is expected to get another from Bharti Airtel .
"India will return back to growth next year," Lundmark said.
Comparable earnings before interest and tax rose to 454 million euros, beating the 424 million euros expected by analysts in an LSEG poll.

Nokia maintained its full-year profit outlook of 2.3 billion to 2.9 billion euros, but said it was currently tracking within the bottom half of that range.