Asian carriers step away from new Huawei smartphones

May 23, 2019 | News On Japan

May 23, 2019 (Nikkei) - Carriers in Japan and Taiwan have become the first in Asia to say they will not sell Huawei Technologies' new smartphones in the wake of U.S. restrictions, with a South Korean peer saying it may follow suit.

The news comes as a blow to Huawei's global ambitions just as the Chinese tech giant regained its position as the world's second-biggest smartphone maker.

Meanwhile carriers in several other markets have said they have no plans to postpone sales of the new models after receiving reassurance from Huawei that the devices will not be affected by the U.S. crackdown.

Japan's SoftBank Corp. will not begin selling P30 lite smartphones on Friday as planned, while KDDI is delaying sales of the premium handset, originally due at the end this month.

The cautious approach to selling new Huawei smartphone models comes after the U.S. put the company on its so-called Entity List on Friday, which requires American suppliers to obtain a license to export to Huawei. Google said it is "complying" with the restrictions, raising questions over whether Huawei devices can continue to run on the Android operating system.

The U.S. has since eased its stance by allowing U.S. companies to do business with Huawei for 90 days. Nevertheless, Huawei is reportedly preparing to release its own operating system as early as this fall.

A SoftBank spokesman said it is "checking whether we can sell [the P30] with confidence to consumers" amid uncertainty over whether Google's Android operating system will run on the device.

"We are checking the extent of the impact [of the U.S. ban]," including the availability of software updates and applications, said a KDDI spokesperson.

NTT Docomo, Japan's largest carrier, said it has stopped taking advance orders for the P30 Pro, which it began on May 16. There has been no change in plans to sell the handset later this summer, the company said.

The mobile unit of Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten announced on Wednesday that it, too, will delay sales of the P30 lite, which had been scheduled to start Friday.

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