Flex Pauses Shipments To Huawei

Huawei India said on its twitter handle that existing users of its products will not be affected.

American contract electronics manufacturer Flex has stopped shipments to smartphone and telecom equipment brand Huawei to comply with the US administration’s decision to put the company on its trade blacklist. 

Flex, which has three manufacturing facilities in India, began making Huawei smartphones at its plant in Sriperumbudur, near Chennai, in September 2016. Besides Huawei phones, Flex also makes smartphones for Lenovo, including those under the Motorola brand, from the Chennai plant. The ban will also affect India shipments. 

Brian Kemp, a spokesperson for Flex, told Economic Times that the company is continuing to evaluate the Entity List regulatory amendment issued relating to Huawei and will ensure that Flex remains in compliance with US and all other applicable trade laws.

Huawei trying to fight back
After the blacklisting, the US allowed a 90-day reprieve that enabled, among other things, engagements with Huawei on support to an existing network, equipment and handsets, 5G developmental work, and disclosures on cybersecurity vulnerabilities. 

Huawei India said on its twitter handle that existing users of its products will not be affected and that it is an important partner in helping the open-source Android platform develop and grow, reported the news daily.

Counterpoint Research said Huawei overtook Apple after its sales number jumped 50 per cent year-on-year to 59.1 million units in the first quarter of 2019, a period that saw 5 per cent decline in global shipments and was the sixth consecutive quarter of downtrend for smartphones.