Huawei

Report: Qualcomm wants to sell Snapdragon chips to Huawei

Damien Wilde | Aug 10 2020 - 5:12 am PT

According to a new report, Qualcomm is pushing the Trump administration to allow sales of the Snapdragon chips to Huawei.

A report in the Wall Street Journal has claimed that Qualcomm wants President Trump to lift certain restrictions placed upon Huawei so that they can provide the tech firm with 5G chipsets for future smartphone and tablet devices.

The WSJ suggests that Qualcomm wants to take advantage of a potential “$8 billion” in orders from Huawei. Because of the intense US trade restrictions, Huawei will be unable to utilize it’s own internally-developed Kirin chipsets in future hardware. Qualcomm is eyeing up a potential deal as this business could head to “two foreign competitors” which would likely be MediaTek or Samsung.

“If Qualcomm is subject to export licensing, but its foreign competitors are not, US government policy will cause a rapid shift in 5G chipset market share in China and beyond.”

Qualcomm is, therefore, arguing that lifting trade restrictions to Huawei would be beneficial to the US-based firm rather than Taiwanese and South Korean rivals. A potential deal would allow Qualcomm to develop new, more advanced technologies.

Huawei’s Kirin chipsets are expected to make their last appearance in the Mate 40 series because these chips have already been fabricated. The future may be uncertain but a collaboration between Qualcomm and Huawei would at least mean that performance of the next wave of flagships from the Chinese firm is assured.

Due to the extended ban, Huawei and subsidiary Honor is experimenting with MediaTek’s Dimensity chips for upcoming flagships. With the public perception being substantially better for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon series, this could be a win-win partnership.

Time will tell if this will come to fruition but this might be a solid solution to a problem that indirectly affects all of the biggest players in the Android smartphone space. This might not solve the glaring hole of Google Play Store and Play Services access but it could be a welcome reprieve at a time when Huawei is thoroughly under pressure.