Around half or more than a quarter of the requests the U.S. Department of Commerce received for sales to Chinese tech giant Huawei have been denied but Microsoft finally got the green light.
According to Reuters, the company confirmed on Thursday that it has been granted the license "to export mass-market software" to China's biggest tech firm. However, details about the exact products allowed for trade were not revealed.
Despite the lack of details on the products that Microsoft has been allowed to sell to the Honor maker, an insider with knowledge of the matter said non-electronic components as well as cellphone parts were among the items approved.
Before Microsoft's license grant was approved, an official with the White House revealed on Wednesday that around 300 license requests were submitted to the commerce department. While others were approved, around half were denied.
Analyst with Wedbush Securities, Dan Ives, suggested that the license to continue doing business with Huawei could have been for Microsoft's Windows operating system." Ives noted that the reprieve is a good starting point for the Chinese tech company.
Before this week's grants were confirmed by the commerce department, some industry experts predicted that a grant would also be approved for Google, as the company's Android OS for smartphones was among the products dragged into the blacklisting that Huawei was put into in May.
While some overseas sales slumped over the past few months in some overseas markets, the Chinese tech giant's overall business proved resilience amid the ban. According to CNN, the company reported in October that revenue hiked by 24 percent during the first nine months of the year.
At this point, industry experts are waiting for comments from Qualcomm, Intel, Broadcom, and Google, for updates on whether it also received a license approval to continue selling tech equipment to their Chinese counterpart.
Despite uncertainties for several key partners for Huawei, some analysts noted that Washington's goodwill move came at a critical time as China and the United States rush to ink "phase one" of the highly-anticipated trade deal between two of the world's largest economies.
On Friday, Chinese President Xi Jinping made his first comment about the phase one agreement during the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Beijing. According to the South China Morning Post, Xi said the Chinese government has been "working actively not to have a trade war."
Xi did clarify that if need be, his country will "fight back." On the other hand, he pointed out that China did not "initiate" the ongoing trade tensions and the issues are not what Beijing wanted.
