After spending years trying to persuade U.S. regulators to ease their restrictions, China’s Huawei is acknowledging that the political climate prevents it from building any sizable business selling network infrastructure to carriers here. However, the company is still wanting to build a U.S. brand for phones.
While it is ready to concede that the time isn’t right to crack the U.S. cellular network gear market, Huawei still wants to make a name for itself in the market for smartphones. Globally, the Chinese firm sells a range of smartphones, including plenty in the middle and higher ends of the market. In the U.S., though, it has struggled to move beyond entry-level devices, mostly for prepaid carriers such as Cricket’s Leap and T-Mobile’s MetroPCS.