Huawei poised to sell millions of its surprise smartphones in China amid possible chip breakthrough and patriotic fever

A photo that the account posted on August 30, featuring US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo giving a speech during her visit to China, showed a watermark indicating that the image was shot with a Mate 60 Pro.

A photo dated August 30, 2023, posted by a social media account affiliated with Chinese state media, shows a watermark indicating that the image was taken with a Huawei Mate 60 Pro smartphone. Photo: Yuyuantantian via Weibo

Huawei is expected to rack up sales of no fewer than 7 million units of the Mate 60 series, barring any supply glitches, according to Ivan Lam, a Hong Kong-based senior analyst with market consultancy Counterpoint Research.

“If supplies [go] smoothly, sales should be higher than the previous version [of the Mate series],” he said, adding that Huawei was estimated to have shipped between 7 million to 9 million smartphones from the Mate 50 series.

The Mate 60 Pro, which is equipped with Huawei’s in-house Kirin 9000s processor that was known to support 5G connectivity, came three years after the company last released a 5G smartphone, the Mate 40 series.

Under tightened US restrictions imposed in 2020, Huawei cannot obtain advanced integrated circuits from major contract chip makers around the world, but early research by industry experts indicate that China’s Semiconductor International Manufacturing Corp, also under US trade sanctions, used existing equipment to manufacture the 5G-capable chips for Huawei.

A staff member introduces the new Huawei Mate 60 smartphone to customers at the brand’s flagship store in Shenzhen. Photo: Reuters

Huawei is believed to be preparing a stockpile of at least 15 million Mate 60 series handsets, and the firm could place more manufacturing orders if there is sustained consumer interest, according to Arthur Guo Tianxiang, an analyst with market researcher IDC, citing supply chain sources.

Huawei did not immediately respond to a Post inquiry on presale figures of its new smartphone.

Even before the arrival of the Mate 60 series, Huawei managed to climb back to the top five among smartphone vendors in China in the second quarter, shipping 14.3 million units in the first half of this year, according to IDC.

The launch of the Mate 60 series, which was timed right ahead of Apple’s release of the iPhone 15 later this month, will have some impact on the US giant’s firm grasp on the high-end segment in China’s smartphone market, according to Counterpoint’s Lam.

Lam’s view was echoed by IDC’s Guo, who said the Mate 60 series shows that Huawei has “basically weathered through external restrictions in the past few years and is set to become extremely competitive in the premium segment of the market this year”.

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