Huawei P40 Pro contains American parts despite sanctions

The new Huawei P40 Pro contains US-made parts, while that should not be allowed under US trade restrictions. The Financial Times discovered three parts of American origin in a Huawei P40 Pro during a teardown.

The fact that Huawei is on the United States entity list means that American companies are not allowed to supply Huawei with regard to the manufacture of new products. Nevertheless, the Financial Times found RF modules from the American companies Qualcomm, Skyworks and Qorvo in a P40 Pro. According to FT sources, Qualcomm is licensed by the Department of Commerce, but that is not certain for Qorvo and Skyworks. The ministry itself does not comment on this to FT.

In the teardown, the P40 Pro has also been compared to the P30, from March 2019. It contained more American parts than in the P40 Pro, such as Micron’s nand-flash. Furthermore, the other parts already came from different companies from different countries in Asia. The P40 and P40 Pro+ were not included in the test.

The Financial Times further notes that stock prices of Qualcomm, Skyworks and Qorvo plummeted as news of the sanctions against Huawei emerged. That could be unjustified, since parts of these companies are still present in Huawei phones.