Huawei refused to work in Russia, but brought equipment worth $15 million. How is that

Interesting things are going on around. On the one hand, sanctions are constantly being imposed against Russia, and many companies are leaving our market. Many are more cautious and say they are putting work on hold so they can return when the opportunity presents itself. But there are also quite unusual situations. Companies seem to be leaving or suspending sales, but the equipment continues to enter the market. It sounds strange, but according to the information that has appeared, this is exactly the situation that has developed around the supply of Huawei equipment to our market. Of course, we do not mind, but how is this even possible?

Does Huawei sell equipment to Russian operators

A new report has revealed that Huawei has just shipped a batch of telecommunications equipment to Russia. And this is not just a couple of phones that were shipped to some seller, but a large batch of telecommunications equipment delivered to one of the Russian telecom operators.

Who buys Huawei equipment

The news came from sources familiar with the situation. At least that’s about it. declares the ITHome resource. The Chinese tech giant appears to have supplied telecommunications equipment to Russia’s VimpelCom. Sources said that the deliveries were carried out under a previously concluded contract, but the new contract has not yet been approved. This week, VimpelCom received a large batch of telecommunications equipment manufactured by Huawei.

It is difficult to say exactly how much the equipment was purchased for, but according to people close to the terms of the contract, the cost of the equipment is approximately $15 million (approximately 1.12 billion rubles at the exchange rate). According to two sources, the supply contract was lengthy and was originally signed on February 24. However, the imposed sanctions have caused supply problems. We observe something similar with other suppliers who, under one pretext or another, suspend sales in Russia.

Huawei is not having the best of times, but the company is good.

Suspension of sales of equipment in Russia

It is also interesting that many who did not declare this also suspended deliveries, but did so because of difficulties with logistics or because they did not know what price to set against the backdrop of a changing exchange rate. Now that the situation has stabilized, deliveries are starting again, although not in the volume that was a couple of months ago – logistical difficulties persist.

There were also those companies that covered up their difficulties with supplies and fear of market instability with wording about suspension of sales. However, there are goods that are prohibited from being delivered to Russia at the state level. For example, the United States banned the export of high-tech products to our country. In particular, this includes the supply of equipment that uses American technology.

Sanctions against Huawei

Here you can remember how such a wording concealed an almost complete ban on the activities of Huawei, which a couple of years ago was cut off from the production of its own processors and components for smartphones. Almost every one of them uses some kind of technology protected by patents of American companies.

Huawei smartphones are now heavily dependent on the supply of American processors.

Then Huawei found a way out by gaining access to limited Qualcomm processors. But, as reported, this is precisely the weak point of Huawei. It is the world’s leading supplier of telecommunications equipment and is very easy to pressure, threatening to deprive the quota of processors, which will effectively kill its smartphone division. It is impossible to say this with accuracy, but many sources speak of just such a situation.

Can foreign companies trade in Russia

However, perhaps not everything is so terrible, because back in February 2022, the Bureau of Industry and Security of the US Department of Commerce also issued a clarification that the export or transfer of goods to maintain civilian telecommunications infrastructure would be excluded from the introduced rule. In this situation, we are faced with even greater uncertainty, because information has already been confirmed that Huawei is curtailing part of its business in Russia. As usual, more detailed information will appear a little later, but for now we have what we have.