Chinese tech giant, Huawei, is in limbo in the production of its own high-end Kirin smartphone chips. US sanctions imposed on the company in May cut the company from the global chip supply chain and the result is the company won’t be able to make its own chips either.
The May sanctions added tighter restrictions on the company banning vendors from supplying Huawei with components that use U.S technology.
As a result, Huawei will be unable to produce its high-end Kirin chipsets from September 15 because they usually need US technology in production.
At a Friday industry conference, Richard Yu, Huawei’s consumer business group said, “Unfortunately, in the second round of U.S sanctions, our chip producers only accepted orders until May 15.”
“Production will stop on September 15,” he added. In what he termed as a “big loss” Yu says this year’s Kirin chips may be the last generation of the series.
Huawei has been in the middle of the US-China cold war, a war that has been raging for some time over technology and trade. The US has been wary of using Huawei’s technology over national security concerns.
TikTok and WeChat, a Chinese messaging platform, have also been caught in the crossfire.
What the future holds for Huawei’s smartphone business isn’t very good at this moment. Currently, Huawei’s smartphone business has “no chips and no supply,” according to Yu.
Despite the seemingly dark future ahead, Huawei ended as the number one smartphone seller in the quarter ended June. For the first time, Huawei surpassed Samsung on sales to become the top smartphone vendor thanks to strong sales in China.
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