Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies has posted its first drop in annual sales as US restrictions on semiconductor exports weighed on its smartphone business.

Huawei's Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou appeared before the media on Monday for the first time since she returned from Canada last September after three years in detention. She was released after making a deal with US authorities over fraud charges.

Meng, who is the daughter of the company's founder, said, "The world has changed so fast in the past six months. I have to learn a lot to catch up with the changes of the motherland."

She said revenue last year was 636.8 billion yuan, or about 100 billion dollars. That was down 29 percent in yuan terms from the year earlier.

It marks the first decline in Huawei's revenue since the company started releasing its financial figures in 2006.

She said US restrictions on chips caused sales at its key smartphone business to plunge around 50 percent.

Still, Huawei managed to post a record net profit of 17.8 billion dollars, up almost 76 percent. The company cited strong profits at its cloud-network business.