Huawei has had years to prepare for this moment — as the US Department of Justice notes, the FBI interviewed founder Ren Zhengfei in mid-2007. Here are some of the steps the telecoms equipment maker has deployed to mitigate the impact of US penalties, which have included a ban on sales of Huawei telecoms network kit to US national carriers and a potential block on buying components from US suppliers selling components.
Vertical integration
Huawei has sought to build a vertically integrated model. HiSilicon, its fabless chip company, sits at the heart of that: but HiSilicon only designs chipsets; it relies on Taiwan’s TSMC to make them.