JasonDoiy
Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) has overcome efforts aimed at halting the sale of its chips worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Huawei Technologies, Reuters reported citing people with knowledge of the matter.
This gave the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company more time to sell the chips to Huawei, which faces sanctions from the U.S. The Biden administration has been under pressure to revoke a license, issued in the Trump era, which allows Intel to ship advanced central processors to the Chinese company for use in laptops, the report added.
The move came from Intel’s competitor Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which argued that it was not fair that it did not get a license to sell similar chips to Huawei, and from China critics, who intend to stop all sales to the Chinese company, according to the report.
The access of chips allowed Huawei to keep a small but increasing share of the global laptop market, while AMD was deprived of sale of chips worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the Chinese tech giant, the report noted.
“The majority of the CPUs used in Huawei’s laptops is still from Intel, so any further limitation on it would make Huawei’s laptop offering quite challenging,” said Emma Xu, an analyst at research firm Canalys.
In late 2020, the Commerce Department granted some U.S. Huawei suppliers — including Intel — special approval to sell certain products to telecom equipment maker.
In early 2021, after President Joe Biden took office, AMD had filed for a license to sell similar chips, however, the company did not get a response to its application, according to the report.
Meanwhile, Intel’s share of sales of Huawei laptops containing its chips rose from 52.9% to 90.7%, in the same period.
Intel’s license is expected to expire this year, and is not likely to be renewed, the report added.
Huawei, which also makes smartphones, was once in race with Apple (AAPL) and Samsung (OTCPK:SSNLF) to be the world’s biggest handset maker until U.S. restrictions, starting in 2019, began to curb its access to chip manufacturing tools needed to make its most advanced models.
