In the wake of economic sanctions imposed on China by the US, the States’ administration last week added Huawei to the list of companies restricted from trading within the boundaries. The order would precede Google’s announcement that it is cutting off Huawei’s access to the Google Play Store and to the core components of the Android ecosystem.
The move could also prevent the company from updating its existing phones, which affects the future of the brand as the updates can’t be re-certified for Play Store access, risking the security of device owners.
However, Google is not the only firm breaking ties with the Chinese smartphone maker. Intel, Qualcomm, Broadcom, and Xilinx have also announced they are suspending sales of products to Huawei as well in accordance with the Denial Order issued by the US Department of Commerce.
According to Bloomberg, Huawei stockpiled three months worth of chips in anticipation of a ban. XDA Developers also states that there are over 30 American tech companies that supply Huawei with software and hardware components, and all of them are likely to follow suit.
Among these are enterprise software companies like VMware, Red Hat, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and Amazon Web Services which all have at least some sort of business transactions that they have been engaging with Huawei. This could be the purchase of software for its infrastructure needs, bundling their software with Huawei’s hardware for joint sales, as well as selling its products to them.
Update: Microsoft, too, is closing its doors on Huawei as the company has stopped selling its laptops on its online store following the US government’s blacklisting of the Chinese firm. A listing for the laptops has vanished from the Microsoft Store, and searching for “Huawei” doesn’t return any results at all.
In the UK, mobile carriers EE and Vodafone have dropped Huawei devices from the launch of their respective 5G networks. Lumentum, a supplier of Face ID technology for various companies including Apple, says it will be halting shipments to Huawei and cannot predict when it would be able to resume them.
A leaked internal memo to ARM Holdings staff that instructs employees to end “all active contracts, support entitlements, and any pending engagements” with Huawei. ARM creates chip designs, which it then licenses to companies like Qualcomm and mobile manufacturers.
We can’t tell whether all of these companies will immediately call off their relationships with the company, but the blacklist stops any American companies from the doing business with Huawei without a government license.
The US Commerce Department, meanwhile, has granted Huawei a “temporary general license”, which lasts until August 19th. This will allow the company to “maintain existing networks and provide software updates to existing Huawei handsets.” However, this license does not allow US companies to work with Huawei on new products.
No US, No Problem
Huawei seems not bothered at all by the threats and bans issued by the American government. Ren Zhengfei, the company’s founder, says that the trade restrictions won’t affect Huawei’s future plans and doesn’t expect anyone to catch up to the company’s technology in the next two to three years. Reuters quoted him as adding that the US government is “underestimating Huawei’s capabilities.”
The company is also most likely going to employ its own OS, Hongmeng, on top of the open-source edition of Android to run on its devices. We await to see how this will take effect.
