Chinese telecom giant Huawei is planning to launch a new Nexus smartphone this year.

A senior Huawei executive confirmed that the company is working on another Nexus-branded device after the massive success of Nexus 6P.

"The Nexus product is a very niche product... the techies love it but there's a very small number of people that buy it. Hence, Cellucity only brought 300... into the country. The operators generally don't take up the Nexus device," Huawei's General Manager for the Consumer Business Group in South Africa Charlene Munilall said during an interview with Gear Burn.

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"That said, the distributors, our open market, do bring in the device, that's how Cellucity got it... and that will still be the same this year. We're doing the Nexus again this year, by the way," she added.

Earlier, there were speculations that Taiwanese mobile company HTC was working closely with Google to create two Nexus smartphones this year. Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai also hinted that the global tech giant would continue to launch Nexus smartphones.

Huawei has been in the news recently after the company received a subpoena from the US Commerce Department for allegedly violating export restriction to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria.  Meanwhile, Huawei has refuted the charges.

"In particular, Huawei has a strict code of conduct, rigorous training, and detailed policies relating to export control compliance and actively cooperates with the relevant government agencies, including the Department of Commerce, regarding Huawei's compliance with export control laws," a Huawei spokesman said in an email statement. 

TagsNexus, Nexus 6p, Google, Huawei, chinese