After having landed its biggest blow in the company’s history through the US trade ban, Huawei is now considering to reduce orders for new smartphones and has asked its manufacturing partner Foxconn to halt some of its production lines dedicated to the Chinese company.
The news comes as a report from The South China Morning Post which has cited that unnamed sources confirmed that Taiwanese technology manufacturer Foxconn has “stopped several production lines for Huawei smartphones” in the past few days. The report also indicates that such a move has been planned so as Huawei prepares to reduce orders for new smartphones as its future in the business is still unclear.
The sources are revealed that it’s unknown if the halt in production will be on a temporary basis or permanent and whether or not it’s a direct effect on the US ban on Huawei. It’s unknown which of the device Huawei plans to stop or reduce producing units of as it’s now under the shadow of no Android, no support from Intel and Qualcomm and without a chipset designer for the time being.
Huawei’s Honor brand President Zhao Ming also confirmed a similar path on a media briefing on Friday. Ming said that the company is re-thinking its goals once of which was to be the world’s largest smartphone vendor, by overtaking Samsung. Ming commented saying “As a new situation has emerged, it is too early to say whether we are able to achieve the goal”.
While its future is unclear at the moment, Huawei is already developing its own ArkOS mobile operating system for future phones and has made efforts to partner with Portugal-based Aptoide App Store to replace Google Play Store. It has also got Taiwan’s TSMC who pledged their support to the Chinese company for future production of Kirin chipsets for phones.
UPDATE: Huawei has denied the development in a statement and said,“Recent media reports are propagating a rumour that Huawei is cutting back production of smartphones in response to its placement on the US Commerce Department’s entity list. Huawei refutes these claims. Our global production levels are normal, with no notable adjustments in either direction.”