A view of a Huawei store in Henan province of Central China in November 2020 Photo: cnsphoto
Huawei plans to release its new foldable MateX2 series handset on Monday, according to a move according to analysts that shows the Chinese tech giant’s ambition to continue its high-end phone line despite the US ban on its core chip stocks. and harms its chip design activities.
According to Huawei’s earlier announcement, the Chinese brand’s next foldable phone MateX2, featuring its proprietary Kirin 9000 chipset, will be unveiled at an online event on Monday evening.
It is also the first new product the company will unveil after the Chinese Lunar New Year.
“The launch of the new product shows that the company may not be giving up the high-end smartphone market, at least in the short term,” Ma Jihua, an experienced industry analyst and good Huawei follower, told the Global Times on Sunday.
Reuters reported in late January that Huawei is in an early phase of talks to sell its premium smartphone brands P and Mate series, citing two people with direct knowledge of the matter. The report also said the move could “eventually allow Huawei to exit the high-end smartphone business.”
Huawei denied the reports, saying it has no plans at all to sell its cell phone business, the company previously told the Global Times.
Ma noted that the continued launch of high-end products may also indicate that Huawei is continuing the research and development of its proprietary Kirin chip series despite the US ban, as Huawei can only achieve the features of its own with the support of its own chip capacity. phones and compete in the smartphone market.
However, analysts said the severe shortage of chips will still drag on phone shipments and lose market share.
According to a report from Nikkei Asia, Huawei will more than halve its smartphone output by 2021 due to a severe chip shortage. It has been reported that Huawei vendors have signed up to cut production, and the company expects the number of mobile phones to decrease by more than 60 percent to around 70 million units by 2021.
“The drop in phone shipments is likely to lead to a 20-30 percent drop in sales next year,” Ma predicted, noting that Huawei’s profit margin could increase.