HONG KONG, Aug 23: Chinese smartphone maker Huawei Technologies said on Friday its business has been less impacted by U.S. trade restrictions than the company had initially feared and it is “fully prepared” to live and work with the U.S. sanctions.

Huawei’s $100 billion (81.93 billion pounds) business has been hit hard since mid-May after Washington put the world’s second-largest smartphone maker in a so-called Entity List that threatens to cut off its access to essential U.S. components and technology.

In its first assessment of the impact of the ban, Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei said in June U.S. trade restrictions would hit revenue by $30 billion this year.

“It seems it’s going to be a little less than that. But you have to wait till our results in March,” Eric Xu, Huawei’s deputy chairman, said at a news conference to introduce new artificial intelligence chips at its headquarters in Shenzhen.

Washington said this week that it will extend by 90 days a reprieve that permits Huawei to buy from U.S. firms in order to supply existing customers, but it also moved to add more than 40 of Huawei’s units to its economic blacklist.

 
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