Huawei set to exit US market

Huawei is expected to pull out of the US and will no longer be seeking to win contracts in the country, the firm’s founder Ren Zhengfei has announced.

"If Huawei gets in the middle of US-China relations," and causes problems, "it’s not worth it," Ren said, according to a Chinese transcript of an interview with France’s Les Echos newspaper.

"Therefore, we have decided to exit the U.S. market, and not stay in the middle."

Huawei has struggled to win customers in the US, mainly due to a hostile political environment that has repeatedly warned US firms not to deal with the Chinese company.

A company spokesman later confirmed to Foreign Policy magazine that, "It is true that Huawei has adjusted our priority focus to markets that welcome competition and investment, like Europe."

However, the company is still expected to maintain a R&D facility and may still sell mobile phones in the US, which have not been subjected to the same intense pressure as its network infrastructure sales.

Existing Huawei customer, Japan’s Softbank was forced to promise not to use Huawei equipment in the US in order to secure its takeover bid for Sprint, which may have been the point at which the Chinese firm decided the country simply is not worth the challenges.

Huawei has repeatedly denied allegations that it inserts back-doors and exploits for the Chinese military into its network infrastructure.