Huawei and ZTE ban in the US gets extended for another year

One of the largest smartphone and telecommunications equipment manufacturers in the world, Huawei, was banned from selling its products in the US or working with US companies as of May 2019, the Trump administration deeming the Chinese giant risky for national security.

Yesterday, US President Donald Trump extended the ban affecting Chinese giants Huawei and ZTE for another year, "declaring a national emergency and barring U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by firms posing a national security risk,"Reuters reported.

Despite the initial ban, Huawei's momentum in Europe, Canada and other international markets has remained largely unaffected, and with its exploding sales in China, the company was able to ship 200 million smartphones in record time in 2019, while just two years earlier its yearly shipments were reportedly about 100 million.

Following the initial ban, Huawei began working on its own app store named AppGallery, as not being able to work with American businesses, namely Google, means no Google Services and Google Play app store for Huawei smartphones. This isn't a big issue at Huawei's home market of China, but significantly affects western smartphone buyers, who normally expect Google apps such as YouTube, Maps, Google Play, Gmail and Google Chrome to be pre-installed on their devices.

Huawei's newest smartphone, the Huawei P30 Pro New Edition went official recently, and is to be a revamp of the widely popular P30 Pro meant for the European market. It will come with Google apps and services.

In the first quarter of 2020, researchers gave Huawei second place for the most 5G smartphones shipped, at 8 million, and a market share of 33.2%, only behind Samsung, which held 34.4% and sold 8.3 million.