Huawei Mate 40 may be delayed after all - but not for the reason you probably expect

Huawei Mate 30 Pro
The Huawei Mate 30 Pro (Image credit: TechRadar)

Just a week after we heard the Huawei Mate 40 was on schedule to launch in October this year, a new report has suggested the company may have to delay its next flagship phone.

According to a sources speaking with Nikkei Asian Review, the company has asked some of its production partners to delay the process of manufacturing the next Huawei flagship owing to recent US sanctions put on the company.

The US government has pushed further restrictions that impact Huawei, and it meant the company's leading chipset production company, TSMC, has delayed the process and won't be taking new orders.

Previously, it was believed TSMC would continue production of chipsets that it had already been asked to produce by Huawei but it seems the company may be delaying future orders, and that will impact the Mate 40's release greatly.

Huawei is now apparently assessing its options to see what it should do next for Mate 40 chipset production, and that means the phone as a whole will be later entering production than it had hoped.

Maybe later in 2020?

The original source told Nikkei, “We now see the postponement of the mass production of Mate series will be for at least one to two months.” Whether that will have such a clear impact on the release schedule is currently unclear. 

It may be that Huawei is able to make up for lost time in other ways, so we may still see the company introduce the phone in a similar time frame.

Huawei often debuts its Mate series of handsets at its own event in September or October , so it may be that is delayed until later in the year. If it falls back into 2021, it's likely to have an impact on the expected Huawei P50 launch.

Via GizmoChina

James Peckham

James is Managing Editor for Android Police. Previously, he was Senior Phones Editor for TechRadar, and he has covered smartphones and the mobile space for the best part of a decade bringing you news on all the big announcements from top manufacturers making mobile phones and other portable gadgets. James is often testing out and reviewing the latest and greatest mobile phones, smartwatches, tablets, virtual reality headsets, fitness trackers and more. He once fell over.