Huawei Will Not Sell New Flagship Smartphones in the U.S.
- Paul Thurrott
- Oct 22, 2018
-
63
After trying to make a major splash in the U.S. this past year, Huawei is retreating thanks to state-sponsored xenophobia. And it said today that it will not even try to sell its newest flagship smartphones here.
“We are not planning to sell the Mate 20 Series in the U.S.,” a Huawei statement explains. “While international variants of the Mate 20 Series may be available on some US online retail sites, we encourage individuals to carefully read the details about the warranty and network compatibility before purchasing.”
Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox
Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!
"*" indicates required fields
As you may recall, Huawei originally planned to launch its Mate 10 series handsets in the U.S. via AT&T and Verizon, the country’s biggest wireless carriers. But the Trump administration demanded that the firms drop the phones because Huawei is a Chinese-based telecommunications giant that threatens U.S. interests. Later, Best Buy also agreed to not sell Huawei’s flagships.
And that’s a shame: As I noted in my review, the Mate 10 Pro is “a beautiful, powerful, and affordable Android flagship,” and the firm deserves to compete in an open market with other smartphone makers here.
In an ironic twist, Huawei in August overtook Apple, the U.S-based consumer electronics giant, to become the number two maker of smartphones worldwide behind Samsung. This despite not being able to sell its phones in the U.S., the second-biggest smartphone market in the world. If current trends continue, two other Chinese smartphone makers, Xiaomi and OPPO, could surpass Apple over the next year or so as well. So much for that xenophobia strategy.
Anyway, those U.S. consumers who are still interested in Huawei’s next flagships will still be able to purchase European variants of the phones. Unless, of course, the White House bans the Internet next.
Huawei first provided the quote above to Business Insider for some reason.
Tagged with
Conversation 63 comments
-
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#355512">In reply to MachineGunJohn:</a></em></blockquote><p>You're assuming there are actual facts to share.</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#355462">In reply to MachineGunJohn:</a></em></blockquote><p>Your comment seems to be a generic conservative rant. If you're going to claim people are failing to produce facts, you should present some yourself. </p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#355599">In reply to lvthunder:</a></em></blockquote><p>I think it's more than just presumption of innocence. It's the presumption that claims without evidence have no reason to be believed. It's often a matter of justice, but more fundamentally, it's about logic.</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#355654">In reply to red.radar:</a></em></blockquote><p>You really don't need to have a background in network infrastructure to be in the handset business.</p><p><br></p><p> It's worth noting that Cisco's first product was a rip-off of Stanford's "Blue Box" router and its software. They eventually licensed it from Stanford possibly to avoid prosecution.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#355514">In reply to MachineGunJohn:</a></em></blockquote><p>There would be absolutely no reason to hide the evidence if there was any. It would simply be a matter of reverse engineering or monitoring data transmissions. Neither one involves revealing intelligence assets. </p><p><br></p><p>The simplest conclusion is that such evidence simply doesn't exist. We know Trump makes claims that are demonstrably false on a regular basis, so this is likely just more of the same.</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#355652">In reply to red.radar:</a></em></blockquote><p>Unless a design is protected by patents, or protected by a nondisclosure agreement, copying it is completely legal. If Cisco had a credible claim against Huawei, they should have sued them. </p><p><br></p><p>Update: As it turns out, Cisco did sue them and they eventually settled with Huawei removing the contested code. That's the proper way such disagreements between companies should be handled rather than getting the government involved.</p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#355892">In reply to lvthunder:</a></em></blockquote><p>Who went out of business? If the legal options need improvement, they should be improved, but governments shouldn't be creating false narratives to protect their country's businesses. </p>
-
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#355652">In reply to red.radar:</a></em></blockquote><p>It's true that the government was making these sorts of warnings before Trump was in office, but the most severe restrictions were imposed by his administration.</p>
-
PeterC
<p>Huawei are targeting a 30% sales increase in Europe and their handsets are extremely good looking and svelte to hold. I see loads on sale and in use everyday. I think they better Samsung in build/design now. Their Honor line, supposedly budget mid range, is also extremely good too. </p><p><br></p><p>EMUI is way better these days but its not for everyone, even so I remain really interested in Huawei as their photography partnership with Leica is going great guns – its just the google issues for me personally that keep me iOS. But if the google relationship changes for Huawei, and I think it will, then I'm in. </p>
-
pargon
Premium Member<p>When I was stationed on a submarine for 5 years, cell phones were not allowed on board due to the reason that China has programs that can target certain people's phones, install on the device so when you think you're turning it off, it displays normal shutdown screens and then goes black, keeps the phone on, records conversation within mic range and silently connects to a server when it has a cell signal or wifi later. Many people high up in the government were surveilled and thus being on a sub, dealing with national security on a daily basis we weren't allowed to have any sensitive conversation within earshot of a device with wifi.</p><p><br></p><p>This was in 2013. We all left our phones topside in a steel box.</p>