Credit: PC Magazine
If they can’t get American parts, they’ll go elsewhere.
As a result of the USA’s ongoing trade war with China, Huawei was banned from doing business with American parts manufacturers. This is obviously a problem when your company produces smartphones, but based on some internal check-ups of the most recent batch of Mate 30s, Huawei may have successfully worked around the ban.
According to a search performed by Fomalhaut Techno Solutions, a tech laboratory out of Japan, the Huawei Mate 30 smartphone no longer contains any American-made parts whatsoever. According to reports, when the ban was first put into effect, Huawei began stockpiling whatever parts it could get its hands on. They originally bought parts from American companies like Qorvo and Skyworks, but since the ban, they’ve shifted their business over to the Japanese Murata, as well as begun manufacturing their own parts and chips.
In addition to the phones themselves, the equipment for Huawei’s 5G network also seems to have abandoned American parts. No word on where they’re getting their parts from for their 5G base stations, but wherever it is, the supply seems to be steady. They are estimated to be able to set up around 5,000 stations by next month and around 125,000 per month this time next year. John Suffolk, one of Huawei’s highest ranking cybersecurity officials, said “all of our 5G is no longer dependent on the US. We hope to continue using US components, which is good for the American industry. It is good for Huawei, but we have no choice.”
The only remaining major element that Huawei has yet to replace is Google. Without access to the Google Play store, many canned apps like Gmail and Maps won’t work on Huawei phones, so they’ll need to either find a workaround or develop something themselves.
