Huawei was almost on the verge of toppling smartphone giant Samsung when its fate quickly turned the wrong way up after it had been added to the notorious US’ Entity List. not even a part of the world’s top five biggest smartphone brands, Huawei saw many of its businesses and subsidiaries banned from buying or licensing US products, including software. It also had to sell Honor to save lots of it from an equivalent fate, which may all be for nought as some US lawmakers are concerned.
Accused of being a threat to national security, Huawei was placed under the US’ Entity List, which blocked it from buying the supplies, technologies, and software to make smartphones or networking hardware. That ban extended to Huawei’s many businesses and subsidiaries, including Honor, which made up almost half its annual smartphone sales. Naturally, Honor wanted to survive this punishment, and therefore the only answer was to distance itself from its parent.
Huawei finalized the sale of Honor late last year to a consortium made from 30 companies supposedly attached to Honor. This was a technique to permit Honor to possess access to US products because the smartphone maker immediately inked deals with the likes of Qualcomm and Google. It recently launched the respect 50 series last June with a Snapdragon chip and Google Play apps inside.
Now US lawmakers on the Republican side of the fence want the US Department of Commerce to feature Honor to the dreaded list, a bit like its former parent Huawei. They argue that the sale was designed to skirt US restrictions that blocked the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from accessing US technologies. They argued that even under a replacement owner, Honor still suffers from an equivalent state-backed structure as Huawei.
Under the new Biden administration, the Department of Commerce previously said that it’s no plans on lifting Huawei‘s bans. It’s still reviewing information, including the possible additions to its list. It might deal a devastating blow to Honor if it involves pass, especially considering how the brand is simply recovering from a tumultuous 2021, both due to Huawei and the pandemic.
