Why are Huawei phone prices rising in China?
Phone vendors in the world's largest electronics market in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen are seeing Huawei prices on the rise.
Demand for new and used phones has risen steadily over the past month.
Some wholesale traders are seeing prices rise every few hours.
Consumers are rushing to buy smartphones featuring high-end Kirin chips.
They're worried that Huawei's restricted access to U.S. technology will soon block production of its premium offerings.
Huawei is to stop making its Kirin chips this month because of U.S. measures to cut off its chipmaking unit HiSilicon from vital technology.
The U.S. government says the world's biggest maker of mobile equipment and smartphones was ultimately answerable to the Chinese government.
Huawei has repeatedly denied being a national security risk.
One analyst told Reuters that Huawei likely has a chip inventory to last it through the first half of next year.
Last week, the firm said it planned to introduce its Harmony operating system on smartphones next year.
That's to help it overcome U.S. limits on its access to Alphabet's Android.
But critics say launching Harmony will only be a "symbolic innovation" if Huawei no longer has the chip supplies to make high-end phones.
And one Chinese market vendor said, "Who knows how good the chips they'll have in the future will be?"
