Huawei says it recorded its biggest ever annual jump in the number of patents it owns last year as the company ramped up its research and development effort to answer Beijing’s call for homegrown innovation.

The Chinese national champion was blacklisted by the US in 2019 because of concerns over national security, cutting off its access to many essential components and clobbering its sales of smartphones around the world. In the last three months of 2020, its smartphone sales were down 41 per cent from the same period the previous year.

But in spite of the US pressure, Huawei increased its efforts in innovation. By the end of 2020, the company held more than 100,000 active patents, up from just over 85,000 active patents at the end of 2019, representing the company’s biggest ever annual increase, Guo Fulin, Huawei’s president of international media affairs, told the Financial Times.