Chinese multinational tech conglomerate Huawei has paid out dividends totaling $9.65-billion to its current and retired staff in its employee shareholder scheme, the Shanghai Clearing House said.
Some 131,507 current and former workers are involved in the shareholder scheme, according to the company’s 2021 annual report released last week, Reuters reported.
The filing that was published on Saturday doesn’t break down the dividends, according to reports. Huawei’s full-year revenue dropped 29% to 636.8 billion yuan ($100-billion) last year due to the sanctions imposed by the US on the company.
The company’s net profit jumped by 76% which was mainly because of the sale of its budget-brand smartphone unit Honor. The US imposed trade restrictions on Huawei throughout 2019 and 2020 because of “national security concerns”, which Huawei reportedly denies.
The restrictions cramped the company’s ability to design its own chips to source components from outside vendors, crippling its smartphone businesses.
Finance chief Meng Wanzhou said that the US pressure has done nothing but strengthen the company’s determination. Meng was speaking on Monday after the company’s first set of results since her return from nearly three years’ detention in Canada.
Meng, who is also known as the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, was detained in Canada in 2018 over alleged attempts by Huawei-linked companies to sell equipment to Iran in breach of US sanctions.
She was, according to Reuters, allowed to return to China in September after an agreement with US prosecutors to end a bank fraud case.
“Over the past few years our teams have undertaken a lot of pressure, and along this process, we have become more united and our strategy has become clearer,” Meng said during her first appearance at the company’s event.
Guo Ping, Huawei’s current rotating chairman, said that the company still hopes to find a solution to sustain its smartphone division and will ramp up investment in research seeking microchip “breakthroughs” after losing access to certain advanced technologies because of US sanctions.
By Zintle Nkohla
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