Huawei wants to expand the production of one key smartphone part

Even though the four major U.S. carriers will sell a total of 0 Huawei handsets this year, the company expects to ship 250 million-260 million units in 2019, and could topple Samsung from the global smartphone throne. A report published on Monday by Digitimes says that with this increased handset production scheduled, Huawei is looking to push the pedal to the metal and expand the output of chipsets from its HiSilicon Technology unit. Huawei doesn't actually manufacture its chips; instead, it farms out its in-house designs to independent foundry TSMC to produce.
The company was the third largest buyer of integrated circuits last year, spending over $21 billion on semiconductor chips for a 45% increase from the prior year. That is not terribly surprising when you consider that Huawei shipped over 200 million smartphones globally in 2018, up more than 30% year-over-year. Only Samsung and Apple bought more semiconductors last year.