The US government gave Qualcomm a licence to sell 4G chips to Huawei last Friday, reports Reuters, but not to sell 5G chips.

The ban on selling to Huawei was imposed in September.

It is thought that stocks of high-end chips at Huawei will run out early next year and that the ability of HiSilicon, Huawei’s chip subsidiary, to make leading edge Kirin processors has been blocked by the US denying HiSilicon access to TSMC and US EDA.

Huawei’s October smartphone shipments were down 24% y-o-y and it is thought that its Chinese competitors  – led by Oppo, Vivo and  Xiaomi – will increase their share of the China market at the expense of Huawei.