HUAWEI woes grow as HONOR moves to MediaTek chipsets for some of its phones

Huawei’s woes have been well-documented recently. With the United States putting bans and sanctions on the company as well as its suppliers, the company has been forced to make some difficult decisions. Now HONOR, one of HUAWEI’s subsidiaries, is moving towards MediaTek chipsets in order to keep business moving forward.

As HUAWEI owns HONOR, it only made sense that the subsidiary would use HUAWEI’s Kirin chips in its devices. However, with the sanctions in place, HONOR really has no choice but to use an alternative. That alternative comes from MediaTek.

As reported by CNMO, the president of HONOR’s business unit spoke at an event and talked about some solutions the company could employ. HONOR looking towards MediaTek’s 5G chipsets is one such solution, though it’s really only a stopgap for the overall problems HUAWEI is facing as it moves forward.

With this move, the HONOR X10 could actually be the last device to feature the Kirin chipset, at least for the time being.

This wouldn’t be the first time HUAWEI, HONOR, and MediaTek have worked together, as MediaTek supplies components for HUAWEI’s various IoT and networking products. This would be a first for smartphone chipsets, though.

Time will tell if the US sanctions are lifted and HUAWEI’s business can get back to normal, but they were just recently re-signed by President Trump until 2021, so it looks like HUAWEI and other companies that the US deems a threat to national security will continue to have issues.