BEIJING, September 22 (TMTPost)— Huawei Technologies Ltd is adjusting leadership of its key businesses to adapt to development of handset resurgence.

Credit：TMTPost

Huawei issued an official document to reshuffle management of its auto division. Yu Chengdong, or Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Intelligent Automotive Solution Business Group, was appointed as chairman of the group and Jin Yuzhi, head of Huawei’s opital fiber business, will take over his CEO role. The appointment suggests Yu will remain as CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group. The reshuffle was made to help Huawei achieve commercial success in the intelligent automotive industry, Chinese business and financial media outlet Yicai cited an insider. The source said Huawei will continue to double down investment in automobile-related fields. Yu Chengdong’s exit as CEO of smart car unit may result from strong comeback of smartphone as the new role could allow him to focus more on the smartphone business, another media outlet The Paper learned.

Financial results Huawei released last month the tech behemoth has waged its long-anticipated counterattack with significantly improvement at the bottom line despite ongoing U.S. sanctions that cut it off from semiconductors and other technologies.

Huawei posted revenue of RMB308.29 billion (US$4.25 billion) with a year-over-year increase of 3.24%, reversing a 5.87% YoY decline a year earlier, according to an interim report in late August. The company increased gross profit 209% YoY to RMB52.16 billion from January to June, and its net income surged 218% YoY to RMB46.52 billion in the period, 30.8% more than that for the whole year of 2022.

Huawei said its core business information and communication technologies (ICT) infrastructure, including carrier and enterprise services, generated RMB167.2 billion, accounting for about 54% of total revenue. The second largest contributor consumers business, which includes smartphones and electric vehicles (EVs), brought RMB103.5 billion, representing a 2.2% YoY growth, slower than the company’s overall revenue increase but recovering from a sharp fall of 25.4% a year ago. Consumer segment is the only one with YoY comparable figures as Huawei started reporting related revenue breakdown by telecom, cloud and other sectors late 2022.

ICT infrastructure maintained solid, consumer sales delivered positive growth, digital power and cloud businesses achieved good growth, and new components of intelligent automotive continued to become more competitive, the rotating chairperson Meng Wanzhou commented performance the first half of the year.

Huawei’s consumer sales are poised to deliver stronger growth in the next half of year, given the booming sales of latest Mate 60 series.  Huawei unexpectedly launched a presale for Mate 60 Pro priced at RMB6,999 (US$960) on August 29 even though it has not officially released the model. The low-profile presale turned out such a success that the first batch of the phone sold out within hours, igniting fervor for Huawei’s 5G comeback in China.

While Huawei didn’t provide details about technical specifications or whether the phone supports the 5G network, Chinese media outlets said online tests proved Mate 60 Pro can deliver the internet speed of 5G. Multiple reports attributed Mate 60’s 5G connectivity to Kirin 9000s chipset, which was deemed as evidence that Huawei managed to defy years of U.S. sanctions.

All the Mate 60 series are out of stock, either online or offline, Chinese tech news website IThome reported last week. Workers at many Huawei retail stores said the smartphone will be available as early as October, and customers could even have to wait for two months to receive the phone they ordered, according to the report. Shipment of Mate 60 Pro and Mate 60 Pro Plus are raised to 20 million units, the report quoted industry chain sources. Huawei’s dealership seems more optimistic about Mate 60 sales. If production capacity is sufficient, global sales of the Mate60 series are expected to reach 50 million units, way more than the nearly 10 million units of the Mate 50 series sales, The Paper cited a Huawei dealer following the IThome report.