Photo: Xinhua

The overall 2019 revenue of Huawei Technologies is expected to reach 850 billion yuan ($121.72 billion), surging by 18 percent year-on-year, but lower than its earlier projection amid the US government's crackdown on China's largest smartphone and telecom manufacturer, said Huawei's rotating chairman Xu Zhijun. 

In a New Year's message to Huawei employees and customers, Xu noted without the fast growth as it had in the first half of this year, 2020 will be a "challenging year" for  the company, as the enterprise will continue  to operate  under the US Entity List which banned the company from doing business with US firms. 

With the estimated yearly smartphone shipments reaching 240 million units in 2019, Huawei is likely to rank number two globally only after Samsung, surpassing Apple, Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's consumer division, wrote in another New Year's message. 

The deliveries of Huawei's Mate and P series smartphones surpassed 44 million this year, growing by more than 50 percent, according to Yu. 

Depicting Huawei as "a player in the long-distance running," Yu said the company is hopeful for a new boom after enduring its most difficult time. 

Both Xu and Yu highlighted the building of the Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) ecosystem which included cloud storage service, in order to sell more smart devices overseas.

So far, HMS has covered more than 170 countries in the world, with monthly active users reaching 400 million. 

The company should form a new system featuring chips with independent research and development plus its own mobile operating system Harmony, Yu noted. 

Photo:IC

Xu added, in 2020, Huawei should eye on products based on Kunpeng and Ascend processors as a key growth direction.

As a frontrunner in 5G, Huawei has partnered with more than 700 cities and 228 companies of Fortune Global 500 to help them launch a digital revolution, according to Xu. 

The US government alleged that Huawei's equipment posed national security risks and urged its allies in Europe to ban the company as it did. 

As of October, Huawei had obtained more than 60 5G commercial contracts, 32 from Europe, documents the company provided to the Global Times on December 15 showed.

"Even though the external environment gets complicated, and downward pressure on the global economy intensified, we will strive to make a living and pursue development in the long run amid the adversity of continuing crackdown on leading technologies imposed by the US," Xu said, noting that the US ban is strategic and long-term, but it is also an opportunity for the firm to motivate itself. 

He said Huawei is determined to embrace globalization of its supply chain in the future which will include US companies. 

Huawei's founder Ren Zhengfei said in a recent interview with Los Angeles Times, "After the US added Huawei to the Entity List, we felt it necessary to tell the world who we really are, and for some people in some areas, Huawei's image has somehow improved."

Ren noted that the company is prepared if the US will never delist Huawei from the US Entity List, saying Huawei would remain formidable and resilient.