U.S. companies will be granted licenses to trade with Huawei “very shortly”

U.S. tech companies will finally be able to legally resume shipments of 'non-sensitive' components to Huawei.

What you need to know

• U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has said that U.S. companies will "very shortly" receive licenses that will allow them to sell components to Huawei.
• Ross also revealed that the U.S. government received a total of 206 license applications.
• A "phase one" trade deal between the U.S. and China is expected to be announced this month.

Last month, The New York Times had reported that the Trump administration would soon issue licenses to U.S. companies to sell 'non-sensitive' goods to Huawei. Speaking to Bloomberg, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has now confirmed that the licenses will indeed be issued "very shortly."

He added that the U.S. government received a total of 206 license requests. While no timeline was confirmed by Ross, there is a good chance that the companies that had sent applications will be granted licenses to sell to Huawei before the end of the year.

The U.S. and China are expected to sign a "phase one" trade deal this month. Ross told Bloomberg that he is very optimistic that the deal could be reached this month and that there was "no natural reason" that could cause the deal to fall apart.

If everything goes as planned, Huawei should be able to roll out an update to add Google services to the Mate 30 series phones. It would also mean that the company's 2020 smartphone lineup will ship with Google services right out of the box. Despite the U.S. blacklist, Huawei shipped 66.8 million smartphones in the second quarter of 2019, grabbing a 19% share of the worldwide market.

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