Surprise reversal allows Huawei to do business with US companies again
Back in May, Huawei was placed on the US government’s Entity List in which it effectively banned the company from doing business with US companies, and vice versa. This spelled bad news for Huawei as quite a number of their products involved components, services, or software from US-based corporations.
The good news for Huawei fans is that it looks like business could be back to normal because, during the G20 summit, US and China leaders met for talks which ultimately resulted in Huawei being allowed to do business with US companies again. According to US President Donald Trump:
“U.S. companies can sell their equipment to Huawei. We’re talking about equipment where there’s no great national security problem with it. I said that’s O.K., that we will keep selling that product, these are American companies that make these products. That’s very complex, by the way. I’ve agreed to allow them to continue to sell that product so that American companies will continue.”
This effectively means that Huawei’s consumer products such as its smartphones and laptops should be back in the clear, but the stipulation that Huawei can’t buy equipment that could involve national security means that Huawei as a provider for 5G infrastructure could still be a no-go.
While this is good news for Huawei, it is also good news for US companies where it was previously estimated that these companies could stand to lose as much as $11 billion in revenue as a result of the ban.
In the meantime, we have heard that Huawei is developing its own Android alternative, but whether or not they’ll still need it now that the ban has (kind of) been lifted is unclear.
Source: Bloomberg