Last year the U.S. Commerce Department changed an export rule preventing foundries that use American technology from shipping chips to Huawei without a license. Before the ban went into effect, the Chinese manufacturer was the second largest customer of the world’s top foundry, TSMC, behind only Apple. With the ban in effect, Huawei only had a limited number of its Kirin 9000 5G chips in stock.
According to MyDrivers (via GizChina), Huawei soon will have gone through all of its Kirin 9000 5G chips. The chips were supposed to be used on the flagship Huawei P50 series; the photography focused flagship series usually is released in the spring, but that has been pushed back to a mid-summertime launch as Huawei has had to work out a way to keep producing the line even after it runs out of Kirin chips.
As a result, the manufacturer is reportedly going to release the Huawei P50 Pro in August powered by the Kirin 9000 5G. The My Drivers report claims that by December, Huawei will be forced to switch the chipset on the P50 Pro from the Kirin 9000 5G to a Snapdragon chip. There is very limited information about the Huawei P50 Pro+, which is supposed to be a premium model competing with top camera phones such as the iPhone 13 Pro Max, Galaxy S21 Ultra, and the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra.
Huawei is expected to run out of the Kirin 9000 5G chip while producing the P50 Pro
The P50 is expected to be released in September and will be powered by the 4G version of the Snapdragon 888 chipset. And that leaves the Huawei Mate 50 series. The Mate line usually is launched during the fourth quarter of the year but will most likely be delayed until early next year. The Mate phones are usually the most technologically advanced Huawei handsets offered by the company every year.
Had the U.S. not placed Huawei on the entity list blocking the firm from accessing its stateside supply chain (including Google), and blocked Huawei from receiving cutting-edge chips, the company would be the world’s top smartphone manufacturer this year. Instead, most expect the firm to finish seventh in shipments.
All three versions of the P50 line will be equipped with Huawei’s home grown HarmonyOS which replaced the Google Mobile Services version of Android due to Huawei’s placement on the entity list.
