Taiyuan (China) (AFP)

The founder of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei on Tuesday was reassuring on the "survival" of the group targeted by US sanctions, but called on the Biden administration to "a policy of openness" after the blows of the Trump era .

The telecoms juggernaut has been at the center of the Sino-American rivalry for several years, against the backdrop of a trade and technological war between the two leading world powers.

Huawei had found itself in the crosshairs of the former Trump administration, which accused it, without providing any evidence, of potential espionage for the benefit of Beijing.

Consequence: in 2019 the United States placed the group on a blacklist in order to prevent it from acquiring "made in USA" technologies - which are nevertheless essential to its products.

"We hope that the new administration will have [towards Huawei] a policy of openness that will be beneficial" to the United States, Ren Zhengfei, who founded the company in 1987, told reporters on Tuesday.

Pressure from Washington weighed on the Chinese giant last year.

In 2020, Huawei saw its global sales of phones fall by 22%, while those of compatriot Xiaomi increased by 19%, according to the research firm Canalys.

Due to US sanctions, Huawei no longer has access to updates to Android, Google's operating system, which is ultra dominant on phones abroad, among other things.

- Sales at half mast -

The firm is also facing increasing pressure on the 5G front, a new standard of mobile technologies set to revolutionize the internet and whose deployment must accelerate.

The Trump administration hammered that Chinese intelligence could use Huawei equipment to monitor a country's communications and data traffic.

And in recent months, the United States has urged its allies to give up the Chinese telecoms group to equip their 5G network.

On Tuesday, the founder of Huawei said he was confident in the future of his business.

Despite pressure from Washington, "Huawei's survival capacity has increased," said the 76-year-old patriarch, boasting - without providing figures - of increased revenue and net profit over the year 2020.

And Mr. Ren to assure that Huawei could "increase its production", despite the American restrictions.

However, "we still hope to be able to purchase large volumes of American materials, components and equipment," admitted the founder of Huawei.

Even in China on its market, Huawei was heavily penalized by the sanctions: in the fourth quarter of 2020, sales collapsed by 44% over one year, weighed down by the supply difficulties in American technologies, according to Canalys.

- "Out of the question" -

This distrust of the company stems in part from Ren Zhengfei's military past and his membership in the Chinese Communist Party, which fuel suspicions about the regime's supposed influence on the group.

Huawei is today a global juggernaut, present in 170 countries with 194,000 employees.

The group should survive the storm on the condition of "rethinking its economic model" and making "major changes," said Canalys analyst Nicole Peng.

Huawei is thus accelerating its diversification by positioning itself in dematerialized computing ("cloud").

And to secure its supply of chips, essential for its phones, the group is trying to take stakes in companies related to semiconductors, according to the Japanese business daily Nikkei.

Huawei was also forced in November to sell its entry-level smartphone brand, Honor.

And in recent weeks, rumors have even circulated about a sale by Huawei of the rest of its smartphone business.

It is "out of the question", assured the founder of the group on Tuesday.

© 2021 AFP