Replace: In seeming response to the White Home feedback, China has now accused the US of hacking Huawei servers and stealing information.

The iPhone versus Huawei battle is again on in China, following the launch of the Mate 60 Professional (yeah, that’s not an iPod, regardless of appearances). Gross sales of the Chinese language firm’s smartphones plummeted final 12 months, after US tech sanctions blocked it from buying 5G radio chips.

The truth that Huawei has now solved this drawback has raised plenty of eyebrows, together with these of the US Nationwide Safety Advisor, who commented on it throughout a current White Home press briefing …

The long-running iPhone versus Huawei battle

Gross sales of Apple and Huawei smartphones had been each neck-and-neck and comparatively low till the launch of the iPhone 6 in 2014. This was the purpose at which Apple first made a larger-screened iPhone in a market that very a lot favored them.

The success of the iPhone 6 and subsequent fashions spurred Huawei to up its personal sport within the premium section, and a mixture of patriotism and cheaper price noticed Huawei quickly obtain dominance within the Chinese language market. Huawei’s lead peaked in 2020, driving down iPhone gross sales within the course of.

US tech sanctions hit Huawei onerous

All that modified final 12 months, when the US authorities imposed sanctions on China, stopping the export of superior US chips to the nation. Amongst different issues, that blocked Huawei from shopping for 5G radio chips for its smartphones from Qualcomm and Broadcom.

You’ll be able to’t count on to promote many premium smartphones with out 5G capabilities, in order that noticed gross sales of Huawei telephones drop like a brick, with Apple by far the most important beneficiary.

Counterpoint information shared by the Monetary Occasions exhibits simply what a dramatic turnabout that was:

Because the graph exhibits, nevertheless, issues at the moment are starting to alter once more. That’s as a result of Huawei managed to supply home-grown 5G chips for its newest smartphone, the Mate 60 Professional, from the Semiconductor Manufacturing Worldwide Company (SMIC). Which means the iPhone versus Huawei battle is now very a lot again on.

No person within the tech sector understands how China was capable of make its personal 5G chips. That is nonetheless a sophisticated tech believed to be past the capabilities of Chinese language chipmakers.

Even US Nationwide Safety Advisor Jake Sullivan expressed shock about this when questioned about it throughout a current White Home press briefing.

Q: Huawei has reached a breakthrough with its new smartphone and exhibits it’s utilizing essentially the most superior chips produced by Chinese language chipmaker SMIC. I’m questioning how involved you might be about this improvement. And does it show that the U.S. export controls are failing or that they’re violating these export controls?

A: I’m going to withhold touch upon the actual chip in query till we get extra details about exactly its character and composition […] However when it comes to characterizing the chip in query, that’s one thing that we have to acquire extra data from.

If investigations do reveal any sanctions-busting, that might finish the battle proper there.

The Chinese language authorities seems to be doing its personal bit to assist Huawei because it seeks to ship a message to the US authorities.