US reportedly allowed chip, camera, and display makers to sell components to Huawei

Embattled but resilient global tech giant Huawei is likely in for some relief after being caught in the middle of the China-US trade war.

File photo: A Huawei store in China

Some good news to the tech giant Huawei

Recent reports revealed that Sony and OmniVision, two of the world's leading camera imaging sensor providers for mobile devices, have been granted licenses by the US government to resume shipments to Huawei.

Huawei uses Sony's premium CMOS image sensor chips for most of its high-end devices with world-glass or leading mobile camera systems. OmniVision is the third-largest camera sensor maker in the world just behind Sony and Samsung and the company is a key supplier to Apple, OPPO, and Xiaomi.

This news came a few months after the expiration of the US temporary general license last August 15 due to alleged "security" concerns. To recall, since September 15, global suppliers with US origin of technology have been required if they want to supply to Huawei.

PC chipmakers AMD and Intel earlier confirmed that they have resumed shipments to Huawei. Likely, those are components for Huawei's growing PC business.

On the other hand, Samsung Display recently received the green light to supply OLED panels to Huawei as well.

Financial Times earlier reported that the US has started allowing chip companies to supply components to Huawei too. In addition, the report said that two Asian semiconductor companies have said that they are optimistic about getting licenses to do business with Huawei.

However, it is still a long way for Huawei to be as fully operational as they were more than a year ago.

Samsung Display's parent company Samsung Electronics and memory chip supplier SK Hynix have not received the go signal to work with Huawei yet.

The US restrictions are still in place for chip manufacturer TSMC as well and Google is still not allowed to pre-install its services to Huawei devices.

Also, the components that can be sold to Huawei could not be used for its 5G infrastructure business.

At the moment, Huawei is the world's largest telecommunications equipment maker and the current restrictions could hurt the said business.

But, these latest ease-ups are signs that US restrictions are slowly lifting from the Chinese tech giant.

Let's wait and see!

Sources: Nikkei 1, 2, FT

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