Since September last year, Huawei has lost access to the TSMC pipeline, which seriously affected HiSilicon’s business of developing its own processors. At the same time, Huawei’s senior vice president argues that the company is not going to reduce the development staff, intending to use it as a metaphorical “Noah’s Ark”, helping to get through difficult times.
Nikkei Asian Review refers to the comments of the Huawei Director Chen Catherine, made recently. The Chinese giant will continue developing semiconductor components in-house, she said, and the HiSilicon division will not undergo any restructuring or downsizing. In 2020, the number of HiSilicon employees exceeded 7000 people, therefore, maintaining this structural unit will be a serious financial problem for Huawei.
According to Omdia, in the first quarter of this year, HiSilicon generated only $ 385 million; which is 87% less than in the second quarter of the previous year; when the company’s revenue reached an all-time high. In May 2020, additional sanctions were imposed on Huawei, and the parent company rushed to stock up on components developed by HiSilicon. Huawei’s management expects that the sanctions in their current form will remain for another two or three years; but for now, HiSilicon will survive both by developing new types of products; for example, chips for TVs with support for 8K resolution; and by looking for technology partners in other countries. … The main task in the latter case is to avoid the use of technologies of American origin; which are subject to the sanctions.
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Sanctions against Huawei seriously hurt Sony’s semiconductor business
For Sony, the image sensor business remains one of the main sources of profits in the semiconductor component business, and the US sanctions against Huawei have seriously undermined core revenues. Their recovery will take almost another year, despite the activity of Chinese Huawei competitors.
When Huawei Technologies was deprived of the opportunity to receive components manufactured at TSMC facilities; since the middle of last September; its smartphone business began to rapidly lose its former record figures. The main contenders for Huawei’s market position were Chinese smartphone manufacturers; but they failed to fully compensate for Sony’s losses in the segment of image sensors for smartphone cameras.
In any case, as the Nikkei Asian Review explains, citing statements by Sony representatives made last week; the Japanese corporation will not be able to recover the revenues lost; due to US sanctions against Huawei by March next year. For the second consecutive year, operating profit for Sony’s core business unit has declined.
