Chinese tech giant Huawei expects its orders for smartphones will drop by around 60 per cent this year, Nikkei reported Thursday.
The anticipated decline in smartphone shipments, which will drop from 189 million in 2020 to 70 million in 2021, is the result of strict sanctions against Huawei in the US.
According to reports, Huawei has notified suppliers that orders for smartphone parts will decrease dramatically this year.
The company has not commented on these claims and denies it is bowing out of the smartphone business.
During Q4 2020, Huawei shipped 32 phones globally compared to 56 million in the same quarter the year previous.
Huawei is hugely popular outside of the US and even surpassed Apple in 2019 as the number two global supplier of smartphones, however the blacklist means production is now far slimmer.
Search engine giant Google also cut off Huawei phones from Android updates in May 2019 and the Chinese manufacturer was banned from building 5G networks in countries across the world, including Australia.
Huawei is set to launch its foldable Mate X2 phone later this week in China.
