Qualcomm Wants Huawei’s 5G Chipset Business

Huawei which has got sanctions imposed by the US govt recently citing privacy concerns, now also won't be able to produce its in-house Kirin chipsets. Earlier, its 5G networking equipments were banned in the US and other countries after the persuasion of the US.

Now the US government has also troubled Huawei by not letting it use the TSMC facility to manufacture its own Kirin branded Chipsets. TSMC, the Taiwan based Chip manufacturing company is the go-to option for the manufacturers like Apple, Snapdragon, Mediatek, Huawei, AMD who produce their chipsets in its facility on a  contract basis. Banning TSMC from supplying chips to Huawei may result in a huge business loss for Huawei. Following this, Huawei had announced that it will use Mediatek chipset for the time being until it sorts out another way of manufacturing.

But interestingly. US-based popular chipset manufacturer, Snapdragon has been trying hard and even persuading the US Government to allow it to supply its 5G chipsets to Huawei. Qualcomm argues in its presentation that the U.S. is in effect sending $8 billion each year to Chinese companies thanks to its sanctions and that this hurts the U.S.-based companies that their government is trying to protect. It also highlights that the effect of sanctions will drive Huawei to seek non-U.S. partners as the US Government cant force every other manufacturer to stop doing business with Huawei.

“If Qualcomm is subject to export licensing, but its foreign competitors are not, U.S. government policy will cause a rapid shift in 5G chipset market share in China and beyond. This is an unacceptable outcome for U.S. interests,” Qualcomm said in a statement.