Huawei’s topsy-turvy status in global technology was prominent throughout 2021, as revenues declined almost 29%, profits surged, and spending on research and development hit a 10-year high.

The Chinese company remains saddled with a series of restrictions that make it impossible for it to conduct business in many countries and access critical components. The U.S. government and other nations began imposing strict trade sanctions on the company in 2019.

Those measures, specifically its inability to acquire specialized chips, prompted the company last year to sell its Honor smartphone business and its x86 server business. Both businesses were sold to Chinese-government backed consortiums, and the proceeds from the transactions largely account for Huawei’s nearly 76% year-over-year profit gain of $17.8 billion in 2021.

The company said its largest business units still generated year-over-year increases in net income, excluding the sales of Honor and its server business, and attributed those gains to internal changes and digitalization efforts. 

Huawei’s full-year revenue declined to almost $100 billion, marking a nearly 29% year-over-year drop. CFO Meng Wanzhou blamed U.S. sanctions, supply chain challenges, and decreased demand for 5G in China for the revenue slide.

Meng spoke at a press conference, making her first major public appearance since she was allowed to return to China after reaching a deal with U.S. prosecutors to end a case alleging her involvement in a scheme to sell equipment to Iran. She was detained in 2018 in Canada and held there under house arrest until September 2021.

“Over the past few years our teams have undertaken a lot of pressure, and along this process we have become more united and our strategy has become clearer,” she said, according to Reuters. 

Meng, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, also claimed Huawei is “more capable of dealing with uncertainty.” During the six months since she returned to her role in China, “I’ve been learning and trying to catch up,” she added. 

Huawei also, likely due to crippling sanctions, revved up its research and development spending to a 10-year high. The company said it spent nearly $22.4 billion, 22.4% of its total annual revenue, on research and development in 2021. 

Huawei said research and development investments nearly hit $132.7 billion during the last decade. The company ended 2021 with 107,000 research and development employees, accounting for nearly 55% of its total workforce of 195,000 employees. It also claims more than 110,000 patents. 

Huawei’s carrier business reported a nearly 7% year-over-year decline in annual revenue to $44.18 billion. More than half of Huawei’s revenue from carriers was derived outside of China in 2021, according to the company.

Finally, following a nearly month-long refusal to answer any questions about its business in Russia, Huawei's Rotating Chairman Guo Ping expressed sympathy for people suffering in Ukraine. He did not, however, suggest Huawei plans to make any changes to its operations in Russia. 

"We believe that the wise leadership will soon put this crisis to an end and restore normal life. We have noticed that some countries and regions have issued related policies, but those policies are complex and they are constantly changing, so we are carefully evaluating those policies," Guo said.

The company supplied 5G equipment to Russia’s largest network operator MTS, and media reports suggest the company is working with the Russian government to shore up its internet networks against hackers. Two members of Huawei’s board of directors in the U.K. resigned earlier this month after the company failed to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.