This year has been rough for a lot of reasons, but 2020 has struck Huawei particularly hard. From the initial US trade ban to the latest restrictions placed on the company, its business in parts of the world that aren’t China has been severely impacted. Now it looks like Huawei is in for more bad news, as Samsung reportedly plans to stop selling its displays and chips to the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer.
According to Korean media, Samsung will stop supplying Huawei with semiconductors including DRAM and NAND flash chips beginning on September 15. What’s more, Samsung Electronics’ display unit will also cease doing business with Huawei, cutting the company off from its OLED display panels. LG and SK Hynix are also expected to stop supplying displays and chips to Huawei.
The US recently extended sanctions to cover chips, which explains why Samsung won’t be sending any more of those overseas. And since the ban covers chips that display panels require to operate, Samsung is cutting those off as well. Huawei admittedly doesn’t account for much of Samsung’s display business, but that’s a very different story when it comes to memory chips, where it is one of Samsung’s biggest clients. At least it’s not all doom and gloom for Samsung, since it stands to benefit from the downward spiral of one of its biggest smartphone competitors.
