Huawei"s woes may not seem to be over yet despite the temporary relief the U.S. Department of Commerce has granted to companies that do business with the Chinese tech giant. Facebook is reportedly the latest internet giant that has distanced itself from Huawei by prohibiting it from pre-installing its apps including the core Facebook app, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram on future Huawei smartphones.
The move by no means affects existing Huawei devices that have Facebook apps installed. However, Reuters notes that it weakens the sales forecast for the tech company"s handsets.
Facebook"s action marks a new major blow to Huawei, which has suffered a series of severed business relationships with big U.S. suppliers such as ARM and Google. Last month, the search giant also cut ties with the Chinese phone maker by revoking its access to future Android updates and dropping support for the Play Store and Gmail on Huawei phones.
These are all part of the U.S. trade ban on the firm, which has been barred from buying hardware components and software products from American companies without the government"s approval. The Trump administration has accused Huawei of being a threat to national security, though no evidence has been presented yet.
Source: Reuters