Newsletter 
When it comes to smartphones, it’s no secret that the market is intensely competitive in China. It’s so competitive in fact, that Chinese OEMs will not release or even hint at pricing until it is announced on stage. You’re likely aware that companies will give publications like AndroidHeadlines the news early under embargo (an agreement not to talk about said news until a certain date and time), but with Chinese OEMs, pricing is never included. Most of the time, we don’t know the pricing until it is announced at the end of the event.
This has led to Chinese OEMs like vivo, OPPO, realme, HONOR, Huawei, Xiaomi and others to build some really compelling devices. OPPO is a personal favorite of mine, with the OPPO Find X8 Pro and Find N5. The upcoming Find X8 Ultra is also likely to be really impressive if its anything like its predecessor, the Find X7 Ultra.
But you know what sucks? Americans miss out on all of these devices. Why? Because President Trump banned Huawei. On May 16, 2019, President Trump signed an Executive Order to effectively ban Huawei, not because of its phones, but because of its wireless networks business. This was a pretty sweeping ban, as it forced Huawei to cut off business ties with every US company. This included Google, Microsoft, Intel, Qualcomm, and even ARM (despite it being a British company). The ARM cutoff really hurt Huawei because ARM essentially licenses processor designs to companies like Qualcomm, Intel, and MediaTek. Without that, it’s almost impossible for Huawei to build its own chips – something it has been doing already. This is a big reason why the chips in Huawei’s smartphones are far behind the Snapdragon 8 Elite and Dimensity 9400.
The Huawei Ban had a trickle-down effect
This ban didn’t just affect Huawei and its partners; it also affected other Chinese OEMs, companies like Xiaomi, OPPO, Vivo, ZTE, and others. It really affected HONOR, as it was owned by Huawei. Luckily, Huawei did sell off HONOR, so it is now owned by Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology Co. Ltd, which is also a state-owned firm. This was part of the reason Huawei was banned.
While Huawei was actually very close to being available on multiple carriers in the US, some of the other OEMs weren’t quite as close to entering the US. But they likely wanted to. Now that Huawei was banned and sanctioned, many of these companies want nothing to do with entering the US. But they will still send over their devices to Americans to review, including yours truly.
Whenever I’m meeting with these different companies, whether at a trade show like Mobile World Congress, or at their own product launch event, and I or someone else ask about them coming to the US, it basically just gets a laugh and then the usual corporate speak about “never say never”.
The US is the third largest smartphone market, behind China and India, and having no market share of the US means that these companies could see some serious growth.
Conspiracy theories suggest Apple and Samsung were pushing for the Ban
There are some out there who subscribe to the conspiracy theory that Apple and Samsung used their lobbyists in Washington to help push the government into banning Huawei. While we haven’t seen any proof of that, it wouldn’t be that crazy if that did happen. The smartphone industry is uber-competitive, and any leg up these companies can get on their competition is a win.
Currently, in the US, there’s Apple, Samsung, Motorola, Google and OnePlus, as far as smartphone makers go. TCL is also available in the US, but pretty sparingly. Now imagine if some of the Chinese OEMs like Huawei, HONOR and OPPO were available here in the US? That would drastically change things. Of course, OPPO is sort of already here in the US, through OnePlus, but OnePlus doesn’t bring some of OPPO’s best phones to the US, unfortunately.
In the US, Apple holds a 57% market share, and Samsung holds a 23% market share, meaning that two companies control 80% of the smartphone market in the US. Google has just under 5%, Motorola at just under 4%, and, surprisingly, Xiaomi has almost a 2% market share in the US.
What’s the real reason Huawei was banned from the US?
The US had been trying to get rid of Huawei for well over a decade before it actually happened. Going all the way back to President Bush’s time in office. The reason? Huawei is owned by the Chinese government, and the US believes that they are spying on Americans. Not from Huawei’s phones. But from Huawei’s networking equipment. Being state-owned is quite common in China, so this comes as no surprise.
Huawei makes and deploys networking equipment, which was used in a lot of rural areas of the US, and it was also quite popular in China. And that’s how the US believed Huawei was spying on Americans.
However, the US did open investigations into Huawei plenty of times, and found nothing. Which is why it took so long to ban the company. Until President Trump signed the National Defense Authroization Act into law. This also hit ZTE, though they were selling phones with US technology to Iran and North Korea, so their ban made sense. But interestingly, ZTE was able to settle with the US and is now back selling their phones here in the US, while Huawei isn’t.
The US Smartphone Market has become stale, due to the Huawei Ban
Even before the Huawei Ban, the US smartphone market was pretty stale, but we at least had some outside options that you could buy unlocked from Amazon and other retailers. Like Huawei, ZTE, nubia, and others. ZTE and nubia are still available here, but if you don’t know about them, you likely would never see them anywhere in the US. They aren’t advertised and are only available on their website and on Amazon.
Now, we’re stuck with OEMs giving us the same phone year after year after year. The iPhone? It’s looked the same since the iPhone 12. Sure, there have been some upgrades here and there, including adding a 5x telephoto lens. But for the most part, the upgrades have been very minimal. The Galaxy S series has also seen very few upgrades over the last few years – specifically the non-Ultra models.
Now, just imagine if, when you went to your local AT&T or T-Mobile store, you had options of Xiaomi 15 Ultra, OPPO Find X8 Pro, vivo X200 Pro, and realme GT7 Pro, just to name a few. That would really change your decision on what phone to buy. Seeing the Find X8 Pro next to the Galaxy S25 Ultra, I really wonder how many people would choose the Galaxy S25 Ultra. Sure Samsung has the name recognition, but almost everything is better on the Find X8 Pro.
As a reviewer, I actually get the chance to use a lot of these devices. In fact, I’m currently using the OPPO Find N5, which is an amazing foldable device. It’s super thin, light, and has some of the best foldable software on the market today. But, because it is not sold in the US, I don’t get the same coverage on AT&T and T-Mobile with the Find N5 as I would with, say, a OnePlus 13.
Trump didn’t just hurt Huawei, his order hurt consumers and competition
Competition is a good thing, even if you’re part of the company that is in competition with another. Competition forces companies to make changes, forces them to be innovative, forces them to actually compete. That’s no longer a thing in the US, unfortunately. At least when it comes to smartphones.
Think about it: what was the last major change that Samsung and Apple made to their phones? For Apple, it was probably adding the third camera lens on the iPhone 11. Or possibly switching that third lens over to a 5x tetraprism sensor on the iPhone 15 Pro Max. For Samsung? It’s even harder, perhaps the Galaxy S20 Ultra, when they first debuted the “Ultra” name and its “Space Zoom” marketing for digital zoom. Since then, both manufacturers have been making pretty small changes year-over-year, and that’s because they have virtually no competition.
Sure, the US has Google Pixel, Motorola, OnePlus, and even TCL. But those are nowhere near as competitive. Google did do a pretty good job of being more competitive with the Pixel 9 series last year, but that momentum really only lasted through Q1. And while it made a dent in their market share, they gave a lot of that up in Q4. Of course, Google doesn’t want to be too competitive because these companies are also their partners (except for Apple).
Motorola is mostly focusing on the mid-range segment, in which they are doing quite well. Their foldable devices are also selling quite well. And somehow, they are able to escape any sanctions from the US. Since Motorola is technically now a Chinese OEM as it is owned by Lenovo. OnePlus isn’t even available at carriers anymore. A big part of this is because of the major investment that is required by the carriers. TCL is mostly doing low-end phones, which won’t grab the headlines, unfortunately.
In the end, banning Huawei has forced other Chinese OEMs to rethink their plans of possibly coming to the US. And for most, that’s not going to happen anytime soon, unfortunately. And because of this, we don’t get to experience marvels like the tri-fold Mate XT.