Is Huawei profitable?
Although Huawei isn't required to publish its financial statements, the company provides relatively detailed information for a non-publicly traded company. Huawei's ICT (information and communications technology) segment accounted for 42.5% of its $129.8 billion (USD) in revenue last year, representing a 2.6% increase; Huawei's work on self-driving cars was responsible for a 72.1% year-over-year increase, rising to $4.3 billion.
The company's net profit figure rose year over year, climbing almost 7% to $9.2 billion. Its operating margin climbed to 11%, up from 9.2%. Huawei, however, noted that it spends more than 20% of its revenue on research and development (R&D), and that more than half of its workforce is focused on future products.
Alternatives to Huawei stock
Since Huawei isn't publicly traded, you can't buy its stock unless you're an employee and eligible for its profit-sharing program. At this time, the only way to invest in Huawei is to buy its bonds. Since trade tensions with the United States rose, Huawei has turned to local sources to ride out a volatile economic picture. The company raised $2.7 billion via ultra-short-term commercial paper in early 2025.
If and when the company makes its stock available to investors, however, it's likely to join the ranks of some of China's largest publicly traded companies, including Tencent (TCEHY +1.73%), Alibaba (BABA -0.31%), and PetroChina (PCCYF -5.07%).
In the meantime, investors seeking exposure to the same trends that Huawei is exploiting might consider buying stock in one or more of its major competitors:
Cisco
Cisco (CSCO -3.05%) is best known for its networking business. In early 2024, Cisco expanded its cybersecurity business with its acquisition of Splunk, making it one of the largest software companies in the world. Its move to acquire a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company is expected to shelter Cisco from its traditional reliance on the ups and downs of a fluctuating hardware market. Cisco also expects a deal with Nvidia (NVDA -0.43%) will boost its products tailored to artificial intelligence (AI) systems. The companies announced in early 2025 they would work together to simplify building AI-ready data center networks.
Ericsson
After seeing the share prices of Ericsson fall 15% on tariff-related concerns in early 2025, investors might be forgiven if they're not keen on the Swedish telecom giant. But the company, which has shifted to producing 5G network infrastructure and cloud services, has a diversified base, with North America accounting for only about 35% of its 2025 revenue. Share prices had bounced back by mid-2026 to their highest level in five years as mobile companies began purchasing much-delayed 5G equipment from Ericsson.
Apple
It's generally not great news when Warren Buffett dumps your stock. Despite the Oracle of Omaha's sale of almost half of his Apple shares -- which had more to do with tax concerns than the tech giant’s financial outlook -- it still made up 22.6% of the Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A +0.44%)(BRK.B +0.16%) portfolio at the end of 2025. Its latest iPhone upgrade was expected to boost an integral part of Apple's business, and it posted a 48.2% gross margin in the first quarter of 2026.
Its strong free cash flow led the company to announce a record $110 billion share repurchase program in May 2024, followed by a $100 billion buyback in May 2025. In April 2026, the company announced yet another $100 billion repurchase plan. Since 2012, the company has returned more than $1 trillion to shareholders.
