Chinese company Huawei said that the company is facing a shortage of smartphone chips due to US sanctions and will have to stop making new devices by mid-September. 

The company lost access to America suppliers for key components due to which the company is facing shortages according to a report by Associated Press.  

© Reuters

The company has been in the middle of a long-running dispute between the U.S. and China over technology and security. The U.S. has accused Huawei of having backdoors in their networking systems that could be accessed by the Chinese government.   

The U.S. government placed the company on an “Entity List” which prohibits American companies to do business with Huawei or sourcing components for their products. This also resulted in Huawei phones not being able to support Google applications and the Play Store for devices sold outside of China.  

© Reuters

 The executive order by President Trump was extended to May 2021 and the US Commerce Department blocked the acquiring of semiconductors by Huawei as a part of an amended export rule. 

The rule also prevents foreign manufacturers of semiconductors who use American software and technology in their operations for manufacturing their products. This includes the world’s biggest semiconductor manufacturer i.e. TSMC who halted orders from Huawei silicon unit.  

Even though the ban has persisted over a year, Huawei still managed to beat Samsung as the world’s largest smartphone company. Huawei shipped more phones between April and June than any other company according to a report by Canalys.  

© MensXP/Akshay Bhalla

However, with the way things are going; Huawei may have depleted their stock of smartphone chips that were purchased before the ban was imposed. 

It seems like Huawei has finally run out of its stock of smartphone chipsets and will probably have to halt smartphone production until the company gets its hands on more chipsets. 

Source: Associated Press

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