SHANGHAI • Huawei Technologies yesterday said its full-year revenue would likely jump 18 per cent last year to 850 billion yuan (S$164 billion), lower than its earlier projections, as a US trade blacklisting curbed growth.

The world's biggest maker of telecoms network equipment and the No. 2 manufacturer of smartphones was all but banned by the United States in May from doing business with US companies, preventing its access to technology like Google's Android operating system.

Huawei's rotating chairman Eric Xu revealed the numbers in a New Year's message to employees and customers in which he also forecast 2020 to be a "difficult year", as the firm was unlikely to grow as rapidly as it did in the first half of last year.

Its estimate of 18 per cent revenue growth last year is less than that in 2018, when Huawei's annual revenue rose 19.5 per cent.

According to Reuters calculations, revenue in the quarter ended Dec 31 rose to 239.2 billion yuan, up 3.9 per cent from a year earlier and slower than the 27 per cent increase it reported in the third quarter.

"The external environment is becoming more complicated than ever, and downward pressure on the global economy has intensified," Mr Xu said.

"In the long term, the US government will continue to suppress the development of leading technology - a challenging environment for Huawei to survive and thrive."

REUTERS