Huawei’s darkest cloud – the loss of Alphabet Inc’s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) support – is about to lift as the United States has signaled that the long-awaited blacklist exemptions licenses might land soon. So far, the only cloud on the company’s shiny horizon is Trump’s administration that stripped Huawei of its United States supply chain.
The tech giant’s growth is materially outpacing that of its major rivals, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) And Samsung. It has maintained its number two spot and seems to be hot Samsung’s heels. This displays Huawei’s readiness to achieve its ambitions and probably become the largest smartphone supplier in the world.
Previously, the blacklist affected in May reflected the United States’ concerns over Huawei’s supply of 5G networking devices. It was alleged that the company’s links to the Chinese state could compromise the 5G networking equipment. Ironically, the Shenzhen-based telecommunications giant continues to dominate the 5G pack, signing numerous commercial contracts around the world.
Huawei needs a political break for Beijing and Washington to fudge the blacklist as part of the current trade negotiations, for Trump’s administration to deliver on its drawn-out promise to issue licenses to the United States suppliers where national security concerns don’t apply. Such compromises will benefit consumers rather than the networking side.
There has been serious speculation as to whether the 5G network pioneer is about to get this break. Fortunately, recent comments made by Wilbur Ross, the United States Commerce Secretary, suggested a reason for hope. In addition to the promise that a ‘Phase One’ trade deal is likely to be finalized and signed in a month, Wilbur told Bloomberg that the promised licenses would be ‘forthcoming within a short period.’
According to Ross, there have been 260 applications, and this is way far from what was anticipated. He also reminded the applicants that entity lists are associated with some level of denial, and the safest thing would to presume denial though some of the applications will be approved.
The two headline supply chain problems for Huawei have been chip-maker Arm and Google. The former has confirmed its supply to Huawei, and now all eyes are on Google. Analysts assert that Google is working hard to avoid losing access to the soon to be the market-leading manufacturer. Thus, the flagship Mate 30 Series sales could benefit significantly from the return of Google.
