Chinese telecommunications company Huawei Technologies suffered the biggest-ever drop in revenue in the first half of 2021 after U.S. sanctions forced it to sell a significant part of its once-robust handset business and before new growth areas matured.
The company generated revenues of 320.4 billion yuan ($49.56 billion).
The sharpest decline came from Huawei’s consumer goods division, which includes handsets, where sales fell a whopping 47% to 135.7 billion yuan.
Consumer business accounted for more than half of sales in 2019.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump blacklisted Huawei in 2019 and banned it from accessing US-made critical technology, negatively affecting its ability to develop its own chips and source components from manufacturers abroad.
Huawei sold the brand in November.
Revenues in Huawei’s telecommunications equipment business also fell 14% in the first half, partly due to the slowdown in China’s 5G rollout.
According to an internal statement from founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei, Huawei is trying to focus on software and businesses that are not under U.S. pressure.
For more information, read the original story in Reuters.