Huawei is mulling a sale of a multi-billion dollar stake in its mobile devices unit to a foreign investor that could connect it with U.S. carriers. The renewed interest in such a deal comes after a failed $2.2 billion bid by Bain Capital and Huawei for 3Com. Since 3Com had contracts with the U.S. government for some security services, the deal did not pass the regulatory process.

Huawei has risen as a competitive force on the networking side of the wireless industry, but the company has had some difficulty breaking into the competitive handset market in the U.S. and Europe. In 2006 Huawei inked a deal with Vodafone to supply 3G handsets to the various carriers through Europe. For handsets in the U.S. however, Huawei only has one announced carrier partner: MetroPCS.

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