The mix-up came as Huawei faces US moves to blacklist the company, cutting it off from American-made components it needs for its products, though a 90-day reprieve was issued.

"We apologise for a small number of Huawei packages being misrouted," FedEx said on its official account in China's Twitter-like Weibo platform.

"We confirm that no external parties requested that FedEx transfer these packages," it said. "Relevant packages are on the way to being returned to the sender."

Earlier, a Huawei spokeswoman said the company was "reviewing" its relationship with FedEx.

"We do not know why FedEx did what they did by diverting the parcels. You will need to ask FedEx why they took these actions. Huawei cannot speculate," the spokeswoman said, adding that the company had never had such issues in the past.

Huawei did not immediately respond to a request for comment on FedEx's apology.