Bain Capital and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts are among the global private equity firms through to the next round of bidding for a major stake in the mobile devices division of Huawei, the Chinese telecoms equipment maker.

According to people familiar with the auction, Silver Lake and a private equity arm of Goldman Sachs are also through to the second stage. The US firms were told this week that they remain in the hunt to acquire a stake which forms part of a deal likely to value the unit at about $4bn. Several other firms which had considered joining the race, including TPG, Carlyle Group and Blackstone, either did not submit a bid or failed to proceed past the first round.