Huawei could soon get its license to use the Google Play Services version of Android

Huawei could soon be able to tap into some of its U.S. supply chain according to a story published earlier this week in the New York Times. As you probably know by now, Huawei was placed on the U.S. Commerce Department's Entity List for security reasons. Being placed on the list banned the Chinese manufacturer from accessing components and software from its U.S. supply chain; in 2018 the company spent $11 billion on U.S. based supplies. The ban prevents Huawei from licensing the Google Play Services of Android along with core Google apps like the Play Store, Maps, Search, Gmail and YouTube to name a few. As a result, Huawei's recently announced Mate 30 series uses the AOSP open-source version of Android with Huawei's own App Gallery storefront.
Some U.S. companies have resumed shipping supplies to Huawei
The report notes that despite the ban, there are some U.S. companies that have been able to ship to Huawei by labeling their shipments as non-American goods or shipping their supplies to the Chinese company from outside the U.S. Micron Technology, the memory chip supplier that counted Huawei as its biggest customer last year, said in June that the company resumed shipping to Huawei after looking at the rules of the Entity List and deciding that it can legally deliver supplies to the company.
The U.S. considers Huawei to be a national security threat because of a law in China that allows the communist government to demand that the company collect intelligence on its behalf. That has led many to speculate that Huawei's phones and networking equipment contain a backdoor that will send information on U.S. corporations and consumers to Beijing. Huawei has denied this.
Just the other day we told you that the Trump administration has been looking to develop U.S. rivals to Huawei like Cisco and Oracle, but both firms declined. Another plan calls for the U.S. government to help fund Nokia and Ericsson so that the two networking equipment companies can offer more favorable financing terms to their clients. Because Huawei has access to funds from state-run Chinese banks, it can allow customers to pay for its networking equipment over an extremely long period of time. The Trump administration hopes to allow Nokia and Ericsson to match these terms so that it can take business away from Huawei.