On May 15 this year, the United States issued a new ban prohibiting foundries such as TSMC and SMIC to use American semiconductor equipment for Huawei's foundry chips. This also allows Huawei HiSilicon’s self-developed chips to have a 120-day buffer period ( (September 15) After that, the manufacturing cannot be continued.
Then in August, the United States once again upgraded the ban, prohibiting third-party suppliers from supplying Huawei with any "parts", "components" or "equipment" developed or produced based on US software or technology, unless the US permits it. This has also blocked Huawei's path of purchasing other non-US chips to replace self-developed chips. This also means that when Huawei's existing chips and parts are exhausted, Huawei's various businesses may be suspended.
Fortunately, since late September, manufacturers such as Intel, AMD, Samsung Display, Sony, Skyworks, and Microsoft have obtained licenses to supply Huawei and can continue to supply some products to Huawei. On November 14, Qualcomm also officially announced that it had obtained a license from the US government to sell 4G mobile phone chips to Huawei. However, 5G chips are still banned.
As the newly launched smart phones from smart phone factories have fully switched to 5G, the space left for 4G smart phones is already very small. The lack of 5G chips means that Huawei’s mobile phone business will be difficult to continue. To this end, Huawei officially sold its Honor mobile phone business as a whole on November 17, hoping that the Honor mobile phone business can get rid of the influence of the US ban on Huawei after it is cut from Huawei, and "become Huawei's strongest competitor in the world."
In the media interview after the Snapdragon Technology Summit last night, An Meng, president of Qualcomm, was also asked about the cooperation with Huawei and Honor.
Anmeng said: "Qualcomm is very pleased with the emergence of a new participant (Honor mobile phone) in the market. It can bring more consumption potential to the market, and consumers will like it. I like the vitality of the Chinese mobile phone market. , I also hope that Honor can bring more good products. But now everything has just begun, and we will also have a dialogue."
In addition, in terms of cooperation with Huawei, Anmeng confirmed that Qualcomm has applied to the U.S. government for a license for the entire product line to supply Huawei, but currently it has obtained licenses for 4G chips, computing and WiFi products, and 5G related chips. The license has not yet been obtained.
In this regard, Anmeng said, “We will continue to wait. Of course, we hope to have business dealings with Huawei on 5G flagship products, but this can only be done after approval.”
Since Qualcomm can already supply 4G chips to Huawei, recent news from the industry chain also shows that Huawei has recently notified some mobile phone component manufacturers to re-purchase lens, PCB carrier boards and other mobile phone components and restart 4G mobile phone production lines.
The latest news shows that Huawei’s new 4G mobile phone orders have begun to be prepared one after another. According to the pace of market order shipments, the current mobile phone orders are expected to be available in the first half of next year. Judging from the time point, it will be launched in the first quarter at the earliest.
Although 5G is already the mainstream at present, restarting the production of 4G mobile phones can still help Huawei maintain the operation of the low-end smartphone business, and it can also continue to bring a certain amount of cash flow to Huawei, while reducing Huawei's intelligence to a certain extent. The rate of decline in mobile phone market share.
Some Huawei employees said that the supply of 4G chips can solve the demand for mobile phones and tablets in most overseas regions, so that they can maintain the channels in major overseas regions, retain the team and fire, and wait for future opportunities to comeback.
