In light of the U.S. administration’s export ban on Chinese telecom giant Huawei, mobile carriers around the world have announced that they would discontinue selling Huawei models of smartphones, owing to concerns that the U.S. restrictions would affect the phones’ maintenance.
Meanwhile, UK-based chip designer ARM suspended its business with Huawei, which is the world’s largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment.
Huawei smartphones use Google’s Android operating system. After the U.S. Commerce Department added Huawei and its 70 affiliates to its trade blacklist on May 15, Google announced that it would suspend its business with Huawei.
Losing access to Google’s products means Huawei phones would no longer be able to access many of the U.S. tech giant’s most popular apps, such as Gmail and Google Maps.
To give current Huawei clients time to adjust to the restrictions, the Commerce Department granted Huawei a temporary exemption for 90 days, allowing them to maintain existing networks and provide software updates to existing Huawei phones.