Trade war: Huawei hints that pressure from the US may be hurting sales

Huawei’s chief strategist said on Tuesday the company would have become the world’s number one smartphone maker by the year’s end if not for “unexpected” circumstances a hint that pressure from the US may be hurting its sales.

The comment by Shao Yang at the Consumer Electronics Show in Shanghai comes as Washington intensifies pressure on other countries to exclude Huawei Technologies from next-generation, or 5G, telecom networks where it actually is considered an industry leader.

“If we had not encountered anything unexpected, we would have become number one in the world by the fourth quarter,” Huawei’s chief strategist, Shao Yang, said at the Consumer Electronics Show in Shanghai.