The move to replace US parts comes after the US banned companies from supplying to Chinese phone manufacturers. The ban pushed Huawei into looking into alternatives. Still, smartphones without access to Google apps are hardly usable in certain, and especially, Western countries.
Huawei long relied on suppliers like Qorvo, a North Carolina maker of chips that are used to connect smartphones with mobile towers, and Skyworks Solutions, a Woburn, Mass.-based company that makes similar chips. It also used parts from Broadcom, based in San Jose, California, and Cirrus Logic, from Austin, Texas.
A spokesperson from Huawei said the company’s “clear preference (is) to continue to integrate and buy components from US supply partners. If that proves impossible because of the decisions of the US government, we will have no choice but to find alternative supply from non-US sources.” Huawei executives say they anticipated the blacklisting after years of US pressure on the company and last year started stockpiling spare parts. The company also started identifying non-US suppliers and started working on its own replacement parts, according to Huawei executives.
Huawei has said it bought USD 11 billion worth of US technology in 2018, a spokesperson said.
