Exclusive: Huawei could be preparing to kill off its budding laptop business

More damning, however, is the rumor that Huawei is simply planning on cutting its losses and backing out of the laptop business altogether. Although this rumor is based on speculation, it wouldn’t be entirely shocking considering the difficulty Huawei will have in getting all the components necessary to create a competitive range of laptops. We already reported that the Chinese tech giant has a solution in place to deal with the absence of Google’s Android OS from Huawei's future smartphones, but it’s much more of an uphill challenge for Huawei to cope with losses of integral laptop-related products created by companies such as Intel and Microsoft.

DigiTimes has just reported that Huawei’s laptop deliveries and development have been suspended, with the company requesting that its supply chain partners halt further deliveries. Future laptop projects seem to have been affected too, so unless the current sanctions are eased soon, which could happen as US and Chinese G20 officials have been discussing trade in Fukuoka, Japan, then the death knell could be tolled for the Huawei MateBook range.

Whether the rumors end up being true remains to be seen. Huawei could simply sell its laptop business to another manufacturer, in a similar manner to IBM when that company sold its PC division and the ThinkPad branding to Lenovo in 2005. Huawei may be afforded a rescue line yet, although in the current climate things don’t look too promising for the future of the still nascent MateBook laptop series, which would be a shame as some of its members have thoroughly impressed in our reviews.