Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba are under investigation by the United States for allegedly violating the ban to supply Huawei

As we all know, on August 15, 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce once again escalated the ban on Huawei, through the revised “Foreign-Made Direct Product Rule”, to prevent Huawei from bypassing U.S. export controls and acquiring U.S.-based software or technology to develop or produce “Parts”, “components” or “Equipment” unless licensed in the United States.

Subsequently, a large number of companies announced that they would suspend the supply of Huawei, and some companies began to apply for export licenses from the US Department of Commerce. And these companies can only continue to supply related products to Huawei after obtaining a license from the U.S. Department of Commerce. However, exporting prohibited products and technologies to Huawei before obtaining an export license from the U.S. Department of Commerce would mean a violation of U.S. regulations.

Recently, according to foreign media reports, on Tuesday local time, the world’s top three hard disk manufacturers Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba were issued an inquiry order by the United States. The content is whether the three hard disk manufacturers have complied with the relevant ban, that is, only take It will not continue to supply hard disk products to Huawei until after the application.

Previously, Huawei revealed that it had hoarded a considerable amount of inventory of key components and was able to support it for a long enough time. However, the United States analysis believes that in the past 8 months, these inventories may have been almost consumed. However, in fact, Huawei can still directly purchase the hard drives of the three manufacturers from the open market, but it cannot be directly supplied by corporate bulk channels. Therefore, the United States issued an inquiry and investigation order against the three companies to investigate whether the three companies violated the ban.

Data shows that Seagate and Western Digital are the two largest hard disk manufacturers in the world, and their combined sales in the traditional mechanical hard disk (HDD) field account for more than 80% of the global market share.