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Huawei Defies Global Troubles With Accelerating Sales Growth

Huawei’s revenue climbed 36 percent in January and February compared with the year earlier.

Huawei Defies Global Troubles With Accelerating Sales Growth
A Huawei Technologies Co. logo sits on display inside a Media Markt electronic goods store in Berlin, Germany. (Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Huawei Technologies Co. has withstood criminal charges and international scrutiny to post rising growth in the first two months of the year.

Revenue climbed 36 percent in January and February compared with the year earlier, founder Ren Zhengfei said in a speech to a group of Russian scientists that the company confirmed. The pace is an acceleration from its 2018 sales increase of 21 percent and its projection for growth this year of about 15 percent.

After years of tension and accusations that the company makes it possible for Beijing to spy on the West, pressure on the Shenzhen-based company has ratcheted up since the Dec. 1 arrest of a senior executive. Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou remains in Canada pending potential extradition to the U.S. as the company also faces criminal charges for intellectual property theft and an American push to shut it out of fifth-generation wireless networks.

Huawei Defies Global Troubles With Accelerating Sales Growth

The tensions have seen the normally media-shy Ren, who is Meng’s father, take to public forums, TV interviews and journalist meetings to fight back against the U.S. accusations.

“The company is more united, working harder and our energy intensity is increasing,” Ren said in the note.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Gao Yuan in Beijing at ygao199@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Edwin Chan at echan273@bloomberg.net, Robert Fenner

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With assistance from Bloomberg