Ever since the Trump administration clamped down on Huawei, initially banning the company from selling its products in the US and ultimately stopping it from working with any US businesses, the Chinese conglomerate is effectively barred from making any phones and tablets at all. To combat this issue, Huawei has already sold its sub-brand Honor to a consortium, allowing the ex-subsidiary to use both Android and processors designed in the US, but the company is still struggling to plug the financial hole left by the lack of new self-made Android phones. According to Bloomberg, Huawei now has a new plan in the works how it could sidestep parts of the ban. It wants to license its smartphone designs to third-party manufacturers.

Bloomberg cites "people with knowledge of the matter," saying that this solution would allow Huawei to gain access to critical components that it's banned from obtaining itself, like processors and other key smartphone parts. The third-party in question, state-owned China Postal and Telecommunications Appliances Co. (PTAC), is already selling Nova phones such as the Huawei Nova 9, which is incidentally almost identical to the Honor 50, the first Google-powered phone Honor markets outside China following the trade ban. Huawei and PTAC would deepen their relationships to make it possible to sell self-branded phones based on Huawei's licensed hardware designs.

Given that Huawei's consumer business if faltering following the latest sanctions, the move might be the only option for the company to stay relevant and to keep its research & development unit going. Once the manufacturer would fully leave the market, it would probably become increasingly difficult to break back in, especially when it would have to ramp up its business from scratch again due to changing political circumstances or thanks to fully Chinese-made components, so this licensing model could be the perfect stopgap solution. In fact, Huawei hopes that the partnerships could bring its sales up again, with more than 30 million sold units expected for next year. Officially, neither Huawei nor its partners have commented, though, so it remains to be seen if the deal really does go through.

While many people expected the new Biden administration to back down on the ban, it hasn't shown any signs of reverting the course. Huawei's current headlock state is probably a good deposit to have when it comes to general bilateral negotiations, so it's unlikely that the situation will change fundamentally in the short term.