Huawei Applied sciences unveiled its Mate 70 smartphone collection on Tuesday, bolstering its premium smartphone comeback whereas showcasing its personal working system in a clear break from US expertise.
The Mate 70 is the successor to the Mate 60 collection launched in August final yr, broadly seen as marking Huawei’s comeback to high-end smartphones in competitors with Apple after its enterprise was badly hit by US export curbs.
Its launch comes because the US is anticipated to announce new export controls that would add as much as 200 Chinese language chip firms to a commerce blacklist as quickly as this week, proscribing their entry to US suppliers.
The gadget is the “essentially the most highly effective Mate cellphone ever”, Richard Yu, chairman of Huawei’s client enterprise group, stated at an occasion within the firm’s hometown of Shenzhen that was livestreamed on-line and at its shops.
Mate 70 costs will begin at R13 700 on a direct forex conversion, barely under the price of the bottom iPhone 16 in China.
Yu additionally stated the Mate 70 is the primary mainstream smartphone to incorporate a satellite tv for pc paging system, has an improved processor, and runs on Huawei’s personal HarmonyOS Subsequent working system, which collectively enhance efficiency by 40% in comparison with earlier fashions.
The Mate 70 collection is the primary main business roll-out of HarmonyOS Subsequent, a big step in Huawei’s push for software program independence since US curbs reduce off its entry to Google providers in 2019.
Full break
Whereas Huawei’s earlier variations of Concord OS maintained Android compatibility, HarmonyOS Subsequent — which started public testing this yr — represents a whole break from Android.
Final week, Huawei stated it had secured greater than 15 000 purposes for its HarmonyOS ecosystem, with plans to broaden to 100 000 apps within the coming months.
Teardown analyses revealed each the Mate 60 and the Pura 70 collection — launched in April — function superior chips manufactured by SMIC, underscoring the nation’s rising semiconductor capabilities regardless of Western export controls.
Learn: Huawei proclaims the Mate XT, a tri-fold smartphone
Huawei, nonetheless, has not confirmed this. It doesn’t sometimes talk about its chip developments at product launch occasions, with enhancements normally found by teardown companies later.
No less than some variations of the Mate 70 will use Huawei’s Kirin 9100 chipset made by high Chinese language contract chip maker Semiconductor Manufacturing Worldwide Corp (SMIC), although manufacturing challenges could prohibit them to higher-end fashions, in accordance with a supply accustomed to the matter.
Huawei didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the chip.
The patriotic sentiment surrounding Huawei’s technological breakthrough has helped gasoline its market restoration and intensified competitors with different gamers, together with iPhone maker Apple, in China — the world’s largest smartphone market.
Huawei was ranked as China’s number-two smartphone vendor within the third quarter of 2024, with deliveries exceeding 10 million items for the fourth straight quarter, in accordance with analysis agency Canalys.
This can be a vital rebound from the second quarter of 2022, when it shipped simply 4.1 million items. Analysis agency Counterpoint stated it expects shipments of the Mate 70 collection to exceed 10 million. — David Kirton, Fanny Potkin, Liam Mo and Brenda Goh, (c) 2024 Reuters
Get breaking information from TechCentral on WhatsApp. Join right here
