Huawei tells suppliers that it only expects to sell 70 to 80 million smartphones this year

[nanoguy]

In brief: After coming close to overtaking Samsung as the world's biggest smartphone vendor at one point, Huawei is now coming to terms with a new reality. With a dwindling supply of chips and no sign of improving US-China trade relations, it won't be able to sell nearly as many smartphones this year.

Huawei is stuck between a rock and a hard place as US sanctions have resulted in a significant reduction in global sales of its smartphones throughout 2020. In fact, it's become so hard for the Chinese company to manage the financial impact, that it not only divested in one of its popular sub-brands, but is now turning to pig farming as a way to soften the fall.

However, the company isn't giving up on its smartphone business, which is still thriving in Asian and European markets. According to a Nikkei report, Huawei has told its suppliers that it expects to sell 60 percent fewer phones this year, adjusting its orders to reflect that expectation.

Some suppliers have been told by Huawei that its sales target is around 70 to 80 million smartphones for 2021. Compare that with the 189 million phones that the company shipped in 2020 and the 240 million units it shipped in 2019, and you can clearly see that Huawei's optimism at the start of the US-China trade war is fading in the face of a new reality.

Furthermore, Huawei will have to dig deep into its remaining stockpile of chips that it built when it still had access to TSMC's foundry. That is projected to get the company through this year, but will limit many of the company's phones to 4G connectivity, as it can no longer import 5G modems due to US sanctions.

In the meantime, Huawei is hoping the Biden administration will reverse some of these sanctions, and will continue to invest in its Huawei Mobile Services while growing its range of AI and cloud services. Earlier this month, Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei said during the inauguration of Intelligent Mining Innovation Lab in Taiyuan that the company is open to "transferring all of our 5G technologies, not just licensing production to others. This will include source programs and source code to all the hardware design secrets as well as the know-how and the chip design."

The United States, Australia, United Kingdom, and some countries in Europe are actively removing Huawei's network equipment from their infrastructure due to security concerns, so it's not clear if they would even consider the company's proposal to examine the underlying technology under a microscope. On the other hand, making a carbon copy of Android 10 will likely attract even more sanctions, and Qualcomm is more than happy to fill in the market gap left by Huawei's gradual decline.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/88689-huawei-tells-suppliers-only-expects-sell-70-80.html

 

[Uncle Al]

"With a dwindling supply of chips and no sign of improving US-China trade relations, it won't be able to sell nearly as many smartphones this year."

Huawei still refuses to recognize that they have nobody but themselves to blame for their restrictions imposed by the US & many of it's allies. Complaining isn't going to solve the problem, in fact at this point there won't be a solution other than to sell the company lock, stock, & barrel to a NATO country buyer and cut all ties with China ... not very likely. Like China, they are very good about wining and pointing fingers, but terrible about actually taking any positive steps to correct the situation. When it comes to negotiations, China is it's own worst enemy and while they have risen to great power right now, that power can dissolve very quickly if enough countries band together and refuse to buy anything from them or sell anything to them.

In a world economy, nobody is immune.

 

[toooooot]

If Biden indeed softens the sanctions, maybe someone should investigate his business with Chinese that so many media giants tried to remove from their platforms

 

[Shadowboxer]

I don’t like American tech giants at all in general. However if I could choose between a world
Dominated by American or Chinese giants I’d choose the Americans. The Chinese are a terrifying and inhuman administration. I’m glad we don’t have their hardware.

 

[Mouseface]

I don’t like American tech giants at all in general. However if I could choose between a world
Dominated by American or Chinese giants I’d choose the Americans. The Chinese are a terrifying and inhuman administration. I’m glad we don’t have their hardware.

Scary but true, the Chinese ccp cannot be trusted and that tarnishes the overall Chinese reputation in the world. Their government made poor and starving with their mao isolationist, killing birds and educated people madness... Only when they allowed the Chinese people to start trading with the world, did the Chinese people start lifting themselves out of poverty, at the same time CCP members take most of the rewards from this at the expense of the workers. Then the ccp claims they lifted China out of poverty when in reality it was the Chinese people themsleves working in the global world.