Huawei Technologies chairman said it will regain its #1 position in the smartphone business while U.S. sanctions have choked the business.

In 2019 former U.S. President Donald Trump accused Huawei of being a threat to national security, put it on an export blacklist and barred it from accessing critical technology of U.S. origin, affecting its ability to design its own chips and source components from outside vendors, Reuters reported.

Phone chips need advanced technology in a small size with low power consumption. Huawei can design it, but no one can help us make it: we’re stuck,” Huawei Chairman Guo Ping said in a transcript of a recent Q&A with staff.

Guo added, however, that the problems were solvable.

Huawei will continue to exist in the field of mobile phones and with advances in chip production, the smartphone throne will eventually return, he said.

Huawei, once briefly the world’s biggest smartphone vendor, dropped out of the ranks of China’s top five sellers in the latest quarter, the first time in more than seven years, according to research firm Canalys.

Huawei, which no longer includes Honor, was in seventh place with 18.6 million units in Q1 2021, as the former world number one remains shackled by US sanctions.

In November, Huawei sold off its lower-end smartphone brand Honor – a move aimed at keeping the business alive.

Huawei’s total revenue dropped 29 percent in the first half of this year, its biggest ever fall, with revenue from its consumer business group which includes smartphones, diving 47 percent to 135.7 billion yuan ($21 billion).