US consumer electronics retailer Best Buy has decided to end its relationship with China’s Huawei Technologies due to increased scrutiny by US authorities on Chinese technology firms. 

Best Buy will stop selling Huawei’s smartphones over the new few weeks, reported Reuters, citing a person familiar with the matter.

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This would come as a setback for the Chinese firm, which was hoping to attain a bigger US market share.

A Best Buy spokeswoman told CNET: “We don’t comment on specific contracts with vendors, and we make decisions to change what we sell for a variety of reasons.”

Although Huawei is the third largest smartphone maker after Apple and Samsung, it has not been able to make a significant presence in the US.

“We make decisions to change what we sell for a variety of reasons.”

Huawei’s smartphones are not sold by any US carrier, through whom most Americans usually purchase their phones.

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GlobalData analyst Avi Greengart termed this move as ‘devastating for Huawei’.

The heightened US scrutiny over Chinese tech firms has increased trade tensions between the two countries.

Huawei told Reuters that it valued its ties with Best Buy and could not reveal further details.

“Huawei currently sells its products through a range of leading consumer electronics retailers in the US,” the firm stated.

It also added that its products meet the ‘highest security, privacy and engineering standards in the industry’.

In February, two Republican Senators introduced a bill to stop the US Government from purchasing telecommunications equipment from Huawei or ZTE over security concerns.