US ban will cost Huawei $30bn in two years: Founder

Hit by the US trade ban, Huawei is looking at a massive $30 billion loss in revenue over the next two years, said the Chinese smartphone giant's Founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei on Monday, adding that the US President Donald Trump administration's attack on Huawei can't stop it from moving forward.

In a dialogue at Huawei's headquarters in Shenzhen with US futurist George Gilder and Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, Ren compared the firm to a "badly damaged" plane, estimating that the company's revenues could miss targets by around $30 billion this year and the next but he expects a revival in 2021.

Ren said Huawei expects revenue of about $100 billion annually for the next two years -- compared to $105 billion in 2018 and $125 billion this year.

"The major goal for human society is to create wealth and help more people to shake off poverty. Only through collaboration and development can humans' needs be met," reports Xinhua, quoting Ren.

Earlier this month, the company "downgraded its forecast for total smartphone shipments in the second half of 2019 by about 20-30 per cent," according to a report in the Nikkei Asian Review.

Confirming the news, Ren said Huawei's global smartphone sales will drop by 40 per cent.

Huawei just outpaced Apple for the number two spot globally in the smartphone market, when the US trade ban hit the company hard as it lost access to swathes of its hardware and software supply chain.

Huawei, which is the world's largest maker of telecom equipment, has also been banned by the US from testing their 5G networks.

On May 15, US President Donald Trump effectively banned Huawei with a national security order.

The US publicly asked its allies to steer clear of using Huawei products over concerns that the equipment could be used by the Chinese government to obtain private information.

Huawei has filed a motion in a US court challenging the constitutionality of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (2019 NDAA).

The Chinese tech giant also asked for an end to US' state-sanctioned campaign against it arguing that it would "not deliver cybersecurity". A hearing on the motion is scheduled for September 19.

Google has decided to end support for its Android operating system and apps on Huawei devices.

Although the Chinese communications giant aims to launch its own operating system called "Hongmeng" to replace the Android OS on its smartphones but the OS has to see the light of the day and then users' approval.

The absence of pre-installed apps like Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram has become a double whammy for Huawei.

--IANS

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