SOURCE / COMPANIES
Huawei talks 5G technology transfer with US firms
Technology development can’t be hindered by political power: experts
Published: Oct 20, 2019 08:13 PM

A view of a "5G is On" banner above Huawei's booth at the MWC19 in East China's Shanghai Municipality on June 27 Photo: IC



Chinese experts stated that technology cooperation could not be hindered by political restrictions after China's Huawei has been reportedly holding talks with US telecom carriers about transferring its 5G-related technologies to them, after its founder Ren Zhengfei made the offer one month ago.

There are US companies expressing an interest in different versions of Huawei's 5G tech transfers, Reuters reported on Saturday, citing Vincent Pang, a senior vice president of Huawei.

Pang said the talks have just begun and it would take a long time to reach any deal, according to the report.

Though the talks would not be easy since they involve too many forces including commercial and political elements, it still shows that Huawei has maintained an open attitude toward any forms of technology cooperation, Ma Jihua, a veteran industry analyst, told the Global Times on Sunday.

The talks will also need to discuss some complicated content, such as pricing issues and scope of technology implementation, Ma said.

Since Huawei is still on the US Entity List to restrict it from buying certain products from US companies, it is the US companies that have had cooperation or the ones that want to work with Huawei that will take a heavy hit, if they can't have access to the world's most advanced 5G technology, experts said.

"These US companies have been put into a dilemma by the Trump administrations and they may lose more market share to their competitors," Ma said.

Even though technology competition is inevitable, there is cooperation space for different parties in the broader industrial chain, Ma noted.

Huawei has been accelerating its own development of core technology to cope with US restrictions and ease its dependence on some US suppliers or partners, such as Intel and Qualcomm, Xiang Ligang, a veteran telecommunications expert, told the Global Times.

Huawei posted revenue growth of 24.4 percent for the first three quarters of 2019 to 610.8 billion yuan ($86.2 billion), and shipped more than 185 million smartphones, up 26 percent year-on-year, despite the US ban that hurt its ties with US suppliers.

Ren, Huawei's founder and CEO, said at a press conference on September 26 that the company is willing to license its technology to one Western company, so it could have enough market share to support its development.

He said that Huawei's 5G technology could be transferred to a US company since Europe, South Korea and Japan all have their own related technology. 

Huawei, for sure, would face some pressure over the US' crackdown in the short term, but it is also a chance for the company to reorganize itself and get rid of inefficiencies, Ma said.