Chinese telecom giant Huawei to exit US market: Fox Business

Chinese telecom giant Huawei says it would exit the US market, Fox Business reported.

The development comes as the Obama administration raised concerns with South Korea over letting Huawei develop the country's wireless network, which, according to US officials, could involve the risk of it being used for spying on communication among the allies.

US lawmakers have looked upon the company as an extension of the Chinese government.

Last year, Mike Rogers, chairman of House Intelligence Committee said, the US needed to be certain that the Chinese telecommunication companies working in the US could be trusted with access to US' critical infrastructure.

Meanwhile in his second interview ever with the foreign press, Huawei CEO, Ren Zengfei said, ''If Huawei is coming in the middle of US-China relations, it is just not worth it. Therefore we have decided to exit the US market and not stay in the middle,'' Fox Business reported.

However, this does not mean Huawei was ditching the US market but the thrust of the company's market would change, says Huawei vice president
William Plummer

''Without a doubt we are going to focus on markets that are open to competition and open to investment,'' he told the channel. 

Meanwhile, even as the demand for electronics continues to be strong in China, US enterprise vendors might find themselves looking at a shrinking market in the country. With security concerns over US secret surveillance increasing, the appeal of Chinese government and local companies is growing among domestic vendors, say industry experts.

There has never been any dearth of support from the government for China's domestic tech industry, but lately there is a marked tilt towards local brands over foreign competition.

CIO website quoted a US-based storage supplier with sales in China, saying that since this year, government tenders have stipulated that more products should be sourced from local Chinese IT firms. In some cases, the tenders called for sourcing of 50 per cent or more of equipment from domestic brands.

Recent leaks by former US National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden, about the the secret spying programme of the US government had only worsened matters.

According to the executive, he thought, in general, China wanted to favour local brands as the Chinese thought their technology was getting better.