Ren Zhengfei, the 74-year-old founder of Chinese telecom giant Huawei, said that 2019 could be a difficult year for the company due to international markets headwinds and expected its revenue growth to be below 20% at $125 billion at the best.

Australia, New Zealand and Japan have in recent months blocked the company from supplying 5G components, not to mention that the United States has excluded Huawei for years. Ren’s daughter Meng Wanzhou, CFO of Huawei, was detained in Canada in early December at the request of the US, accusing her of violating its sanctions on Iran. This sudden move has added more worries to Huawei, which already faces huge pressure when selling equipment outside China.

Editor: Ben Jiang