Huawei's Biggest Phone Assembler Halts Part of Production at China Plant

Huawei Technologies' top smartphone assembler has suspended part of its production reported Nikkei Asian Review. Sources told Nikkei that Singapore-based Flex revealed to employees that it needed to stop manufacturing for Huawei.

RELATED: MAJOR CHIP COMPANIES FOLLOW THE LEAD OF GOOGLE TO STOP SUPPLYING HUAWEI AFTER US BLACKLIST

Trade war to blame

"The company cited the trade war as the reason for the suspension," one Flex employee told Nikkei. "We are not sure when the production work will resume."

Flex confirmed on Saturday that shipments to Huawei and its affiliates were halted in order to comply with the new blacklisting rules.  Furthermore, Shanghai-based tech consultancy CINNO reported a Flex internal memo asking employees to take leave from May 23 through May 30 as the company "continues to review its compliance" according to the new regulations.

To make matters worse the news comes right after Intel, Qualcomm, and Broadcom, German chipmaker Infineon Technologies, as well as US memory chip makers Micron Technology and Western Digital, have also all joined Google in stopping business with the firm.

Other plans?

However, Nikkei reported last week that Huawei had stockpiled up to a year's supply of chips and other components. The firm had supposedly foreseen the U.S. blacklist after the arrest of its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, on December 1st. How it plans to handle the recent events is still to be seen.