Huawei founder Zhengfei Ren is forecasting a global economic slowdown and a substantial drop in consumption power for the next decade. In a company memo, he urged employees to shift the focus from the pursuit of revenue and scale to profit and cash flow to make sure the company survives the crisis.

“The next 10 years should be a very painful period in history, and the global economy will continue to decline,” Ren said in the memo. “Now, due to the impact of the war and the continued blockade and suppression by the United States, the global economy is unlikely to turn around in the next three to five years, and with the impact of the pandemic, there should not be a bright spot in the world.”

Ren added that Huawei will need to cut back or close businesses that cannot generate value and profit, and channel resources to more profitable operations, like its cloud operations. He also mentioned the company will “completely give up” markets in unspecified counties to prioritize the markets and customers that have value.

“The budget for 2023 should be kept at a reasonable pace, and businesses that are blindly expanded and invested should be scaled down or closed,” he said.

Ren pointed out that information and communications technology (ICT) is still Huawei’s profitable business and the company should concentrate on building complex but competitive software and hardware platforms and get rid of other attached projects.

Looking ahead, Ren listed cloud computing, digital energy, and smart car businesses as Huawei’s key sectors. He specifically stated that Huawei’s cloud computing services should mainly support the company’s own business development to take the “industrial internet” path. Meanwhile, the digital energy business needs more investment “at the strategic window of opportunity” to generate greater value, while reducing the research budget and focusing on developing key components to gain the competitive edge for its intelligent automotive solution, Ren suggests.

The memo comes on the heel of the Chinese telecom giant’s half-year earnings reported earlier this month. Huawei’s revenue for the first half of 2022 declined about 6% year over year to around $44 billion, while its enterprise unit including the cloud services saw a 28% revenue growth to about $8.7 billion for the first six months of this year.