Some have said that Huawei could lose up to $30 billion due to the US ban, and the Chinese company has already lost $12 billion of that, it seems.
Huawei lost $12 billion already due the US ban
“We didn’t meet our revised targets, which was the $135 billion mark. We were short by $12 billion. This was the results of U.S. sanctions,” said rotating Huawei chairman Eric Xu in a CNBC interview. Huawei earned $123 billion instead of its original goal of $135 billion in 2019.
The U.S. sanctions to which Xu refers are those behind the Huawei blacklisting. Last May, U.S. President Donald Trump declared a ban on Huawei in the States, forbidding American companies from doing business with the Chinese company.
Though Trump eventually relaxed some laws to allow businesses to sell to Huawei, the company doesn’t have access to America’s 5G network. Additionally, small businesses and carriers relying on Huawei telecom equipment are upgrading away from the Chinese maker’s routers to avoid the potential for espionage.
In the mobile space, Google has revoked Huawei’s Android license. Huawei no longer has access to Google Mobile Services (GMS) or the Google Play Store. The Federal Government is allowing Huawei to still update its Android phones via license extensions. Huawei just received a fifth extension in March. The new extension stretches through May 15th.
Outside of Android, Huawei cannot use Google Play, nor can it allow Play Store installations on its devices. Huawei no longer has access to Google services on new phones. This explains Samsung’s mocking Huawei over the Mate 30’s lack of Google apps and services.
What Huawei can learn from the US Blacklisting
What can Huawei learn from its current situation? With all the financial loss as well as the current global health crisis, Huawei must learn how to survive on its own.
That’s right: it must learn how to cope in a world without Google’s Android.
Interestingly enough, it appeared for a while as though HarmonyOS (called “HongMeng” in China) was the solution to Huawei’s troubles. Credible sources said that Huawei had been working on its own OS for at least 7 years.
Huawei had a team of people assigned to R&D for the mobile operating system in the event that Huawei found itself outside of American favor. That OS is still not ready for primetime, though, at least not on smartphones.
And then, once the ban took place, Huawei didn’t know what to do. Huawei seemed lost on how to proceed. The company developed HMS (its GMS alternative) in the meantime, and is now shipping it on its phones… including AppGallery.
Huawei says it wants to continue working with Google, while at the same time, it is trying to get as many developers to develop apps for its AppGallery Android app store.