Huawei again stemmed its revenue decline, but the under-fire vendor saw its profitability continue to slide in the first three quarters of 2022.

Revenue in the nine-month period dipped 2.2 per cent year-on-year to CNY445.8 billion ($61.8 billion), while its profit margin dropped to 6.1 per cent from 10.2 per cent.

Its earning release didn’t disclose net profit or break down sales by division, but calculations showed Q3 sales were up 6.5 per cent from a year earlier to CNY144.2 million – its first quarterly gain in two years.

In a short statement, rotating chairman Eric Xu noted the fall in its device business continued to slow down, and its ICT infrastructure business maintained steady growth.

He added: “Overall performance was in line with forecast.”

The drop in margin comes two months after Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei called on employees to focus on improving profit, as he expects global consumption to decline.

H1 revenue dropped 5.9 per cent to CNY301.6 billion.