If the person is from the US, they’ve likely never come across a Huawei device and are unaware of how popular and good their laptops and phones are.

Edit: In general it’s quite fascinating how backwards the US smartphone technology scene is. I only recently became aware of this being involved in thst bubble myself. The US is middle of the pack at best when it comes to mobile networks, it’s way behind when it comes to phone hardware. The one area where it leads is software and services, but it will be interesting if the US can maintain the lead here, especially since basically all the American software companies are trying to emulate WeChat.

I am from the EU and I've seen lots of Huawei mobiles. But what are they, apart from one of many Android OEMs that make no money?

> But what are they, apart from one of many Android OEMs that make no money?

Yeah, about that: https://www.huawei.com/en/press-events/annual-report/2018

=> Net profit 59,345 CNY Million 25.1%

I believe that's about $8bn. And the 25.1% at the end is the increase from last year.

Most of which is probably from their switch hardware business. Android has sucked the money out of the smartphone business.

In general making an OS from scratch wasn't very successful even with Samsung (#2 maker with considerable market share and a track record) completely failed with Tizen, so a relatively younger and smaller chinese company succeeding seems dubious. Of course I would be glad for a competing mobile OS, but I would wait for benchmarks and take security statements with a grain of salt. Also, it might be completely different departments at Huawei but there's the Cisco router firmware debacle (https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10485560675556000)

> #2 maker with considerable market share and a track record

You mean #1, right? :-) https://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2019-...