The Paper reporter Zhou Ling
On November 13, The Paper reporter verified from multiple Huawei insiders that Qualcomm has indeed obtained a license to supply 4G chips to Huawei.
This is good news for Huawei, but it actually won’t solve much of Huawei’s problems. A Huawei insider said that 4G chips are rarely used in the domestic market and can be used in some tablets and low-end mobile phones in overseas markets.
So far only Qualcomm has obtained a 4G chip license. A relevant person from MediaTek, another mobile phone chip company, said that there is currently no news to share.
In an interview with The Paper reporter in Shanghai on the 12th, Samsung Semiconductor said that Samsung has been actively communicating, but so far it has not been able to provide chips to Huawei or manufacture chips for Huawei.
Zhou Chen, executive vice president of Ziguang Zhanrui, was interviewed by The Paper on the 10th when answering about cooperation with Huawei. He said that Zhanrui still emphasizes compliance when it comes to Huawei's supply, "All our products , agreements and research and development are all in compliance." Regarding the progress of Zhanrui's license application, Zhou Chen said it was not yet clear.
The British "Financial Times" recently reported that Microsoft's application has been approved recently and it can continue to authorize Huawei's Windows operating system. The report also stated that Qualcomm and MediaTek are also very close to obtaining the license.
On the 13th, neither Huawei nor Qualcomm had any official response.
Qualcomm has been actively lobbying the US government to allow its cooperation with Huawei. Huawei has previously paid Qualcomm up to $1.8 billion for patents.
On November 4, US time, Qualcomm stated in its fourth fiscal quarter financial report that it had received US$1.8 billion in patent fees from Huawei. Qualcomm President Cristiano Amon said at the earnings conference that Huawei has created an opportunity for Qualcomm's mobile chip business (QCT) to expand the potential market. If we can get permission to sell to Huawei, that would be a completely positive opportunity.
According to public reports, after Huawei was sanctioned by the United States for the third round, Huawei’s supply chain companies successively applied to the United States for continued supply licenses, including TSMC, MediaTek, Western Digital, SMIC, Macronix, and SK Hynix, Samsung, etc.
However, judging from the pace of US release, products unrelated to 5G were released first. Previously, Intel and AMD chips were allowed to continue supply, and key components such as displays and images were also released. This time, Qualcomm’s 4G chips Also released. But there is no good news yet for 5G mobile phone chips.