Huawei may have a plan underway to circumvent the US ban

The US trade ban has undoubtedly paralyzed Huawei’s smartphone business in most parts of the world. However, as we have learned over the years, Huawei does not take it for granted. There have been loopholes that Huawei has been quick to exploit, such as repackaging smartphones under new names so they could continue to sell them with Google services and all the necessary hardware components.

The specific entity of PTAC that would license Huawei’s designs is called Xnova. Xnova already sells Huawei’s Nova-branded smartphones on their retail website. But if it were to accept Huawei’s alleged offer to license its smartphone designs, Xnova would be able to sell Xnova – branded smartphones based on Huawei’s designs.

Bloomberg also reports that Huawei is in negotiations to license its designs out to the Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturer TD Tech Ltd., which will also sell self-branded devices based on Huawei designs.

Negotiations are reportedly still ongoing, according to Bloomberg. The publication’s source also claims that Huawei expects these licensing partnerships to bring Huawei’s smartphone shipments to more than 30 million units next year.

Licensing its smartphone designs to third-party companies would allow Huawei to continue pouring money in while bypassing the American thorn in the side. In this way, Huawei-enabled smartphones could still access important components such as 5G modems, chips from TSMC and of course Google’s Android apps.

This news comes just days after the Biden administration signed the Safe Equipment Act, which prevents the FCC from approving “any authorization application for equipment that poses an unacceptable risk to national security.” This means that devices from Huawei and ZTE, both of which have been marked as national security risks by the United States, will not receive the necessary FCC approval to launch their devices in the United States.