Recently, at a press conference, Huawei claimed that the Mate 70 is the most powerful Mate phone, but analysts and consumers have expressed that compared to previous models, the improvements on this phone seem limited. Interest in the Huawei Mate 70 is waning, and its competitiveness is declining.
At the Huawei high-end flagship phone Mate 70 series launch event on November 26th, Huawei’s Consumer Business CEO Richard Yu described it as the “most powerful Mate phone in history,” but did not provide any data or details about the chip specifications or process. The focus of this release was their self-developed mobile operating system “HarmonyOS Next.” Huawei also highlighted the AI capabilities of the Mate 70 phone.
While not much chip information was revealed during the event, various organizations and tech influencers pointed out that the standard version of Huawei’s new phone Mate 70 uses the older Kirin 9010 chip, while the Mate 70 Pro, Pro+, and RS models are equipped with the new Kirin 9020 chip for the first time.
Huawei, following its custom, did not disclose the specific model and parameters of the processor, which has drawn dissatisfaction from netizens. An MSN website user commented that the processor, as a core component of the phone, having opaque information may impact purchase decisions, especially when the price exceeds tens of thousands of yuan.
Some users also noted that Huawei’s processor performance lags behind Apple’s A-series, Qualcomm Snapdragon flagships, and Tianji flagships. In the fiercely competitive phone market, whether the Mate 70 series can lead the domestic phone industry’s top tier is a question.
Recently, Bloomberg reported that Huawei’s latest chips will remain on the outdated 7nm architecture technology level at least until 2026. At that time, TSMC will begin producing 2nm chips, placing Huawei’s chips three generations behind.
Additionally, SMIC uses older DUV equipment to produce Huawei’s chips, resulting in low yields, high costs, and limited production capacity, making it challenging for Huawei to mass-produce chips. Huawei can only use these chips in limited high-end models.
Brad Liao, a senior manager in IC design in Taiwan, told Epoch Times that SMIC’s 7nm technology employs multiple exposures to bypass U.S. EUV machine restrictions, leading to a yield of only around 30-40%, causing significant difficulty for Huawei. The testing costs after production are also exceptionally high, making it unlikely for any normal company to consider using such technology for manufacturing.
Ten years ago, Huawei released the Mate 7, using TSMC’s chip manufacturing services, nearly matching every feature to the iPhone 6, taking a high-end competitive route against Apple’s phones.
Huawei’s phone pricing also mirrors Apple’s phones: Mate 70 Pro starting at 6499 yuan, Mate 70 Pro+ starting at 8499 yuan, and Mate 70 RS starting at 11999 yuan.
According to IDC data, in the first half of 2023, in the Chinese market for phones priced above $600, the top two brands were Apple and Huawei, but Huawei significantly trailed behind Apple by over 50 percentage points.
A report by Jefferies issued on November 28 mentioned that the new Huawei Mate 70 smartphone is not selling well in China, as indicated by online reviews following its release, showing a significant decrease in people’s enthusiasm.
IT Times, a technology finance website, opined that when users place orders for the Huawei Mate 70, they will still compare its price to the iPhone 16, making it challenging to persuade most users solely based on patriotism to make the purchase.
A P60 phone user told The Paper, “I originally planned to wait for the Mate 70 release to get a new phone, but when the sales sent me a message today to pre-order for 200 yuan, I hesitated. This year, many domestic phones have introduced many new AI features, offering plenty of choices. Comparatively, Huawei’s cost-performance ratio is worth considering.”
Snowball, another user, expressed, “Huawei is now going high-end, so I’ll have to choose Xiaomi; if I earn more money, I’ll buy Apple.”
On the X platform, a netizen commented, “Huawei typically offers high prices for low specifications, and yet, some passionate supporters still buy it under the pretext of ‘supporting domestic products.’ Ironically, other domestic brands like Xiaomi, vivo, and Oppo are not even domestically owned.”
This could potentially impact the overall shipment volume of Huawei phones. Reuters quoted Jefferies analysts saying, “We believe that the final sales of the Mate 70 may be lower than those of the Mate 60.”
“We are revising down our forecast for Huawei’s 2024 shipment volume to 48 million units, which could be a positive outcome for iPhone and other brands,” the analysts added.
A recent report by research firm TechInsights highlighted that the Kirin 9020 processor featured in the Mate 70 series offers a user experience inferior to the latest processors from Qualcomm and Apple, affecting its competitiveness in the high-end market.
The Mate 70 series also faces pressure from domestic competitors like Honor and vivo, leading to an anticipated lower sales volume compared to the Mate 60 series, with an estimated 3 million units.
Consulting firm Canalys analyst Toby Zhu told Reuters that it is inevitable for consumer response to the new Huawei phones to cool down, as the hype from the industry and consumers naturally wanes after Huawei’s initial return.
Huawei has been embroiled in controversy due to its close ties with the government.
On November 29, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced that the model approval work had been completed as required, supporting the smooth launch of the Huawei Mate series phones.
Netizens commented, “The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology support the Mate 70, this is indeed a bit outrageous,” and “The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has never issued work dynamics solely for a series of smartphones like this before.”
Last year, coinciding with the release of the Mate 70, Beijing issued a directive requiring officials and government employees to stop using Apple phones, leading to a 9% decrease in iPhone sales in the fourth quarter of 2023, while Huawei’s sales grew by 71.1%.
In September this year, Bloomberg reported, according to sources, that the Chinese Communist Party planned to expand the ban on central government officials using iPhones to cover official agencies and state-owned enterprises.
According to a report by Reuters, the latest data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology shows that in October, the sales volume of foreign smartphones, including Apple’s iPhone, in China declined by 44.25% year-on-year, while overall Chinese phone sales increased by 1.8% during the same period.
Huawei’s security issues have also been frequently exposed by netizens.
On November 12, a netizen from Changchun, Jilin, claimed that while using a Huawei phone to circumvent internet restrictions, they were detected by the Changchun Public Security Bureau for using VPN and were fined 600 yuan.
In June 2021, a mainland netizen stated that after upgrading to Huawei’s HarmonyOS 2.0, the phone would effectively detect and notify authorities about the installation of VPN and other circumvention applications.