A report in the Wall Street Journal (paywall) with industry analysts made the claim following a teardown of the phones to determine the provenance of the components. In the piece a Huawei spokesperson is quoted as saying the company has a “clear preference to continue to integrate and buy components from U.S. supply partners. If that proves impossible because of the decisions of the U.S. government, we will have no choice but to find alternative supply from non-U.S. sources.” The speed at which Huawei was able to move to ensure the Mate 30 had no US parts in it is surprising and points to Huawei’s versatile supply chain. The company is very much caught up in the US-China trade war and has, some say, become a scapegoat for the American view that Chinese tech is built with backdoors to spy on Americans who buy and use it. These claims are unfounded publically, but continue to dog Huawei, which has been granted several 90-day extensions to trade with some US companies. But it meant that the Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro launched without Google services, and neither has launched officially in Europe. The news that the phones have no US parts in them shows Huawei might end up not needing to trade with America, but the Google issue is a much bigger problem than the component one. Henry is Tech Advisor’s Phones Editor, ensuring he and the team covers and reviews every smartphone worth knowing about for readers and viewers all over the world. He spends a lot of time moving between different handsets and shouting at WhatsApp to support multiple devices at once.
