The recently presented latest Huawei smartphones of the flagship Mate 70 family, according to Jefferies analysts, enjoy significantly lower public interest compared to their predecessors. Accordingly, in terms of sales volumes, the new products are unlikely to be ahead, and Huawei as a whole is unlikely to be able to ship 48 million smartphones of all models by the end of the year.
According to experts cited by Reuters, the announcement of the Huawei Mate 70 family of smartphones aroused “much less” enthusiasm among potential buyers, judging by the frequency of reviews and comments on the Internet, compared to the Mate 60 family. The latter, we recall, was the first in years family of Huawei flagships on proprietary chips, revealing to the world the HiSilicon Kirin 9000s, created under sanctions. The characteristics of the Kirin 9020, which are not officially disclosed, do not yet allow us to talk about the presence of fundamental changes in the new chip.
Since their introduction to the market last fall, Huawei smartphones of the Mate 60 family have sold between 12 and 13 million units, according to Jefferies representatives. This is noticeably lower than the 15–16 million units that analysts initially expected. The Pura 70 family of smartphones, released in April of this year, has so far found about 5 million owners. According to Jefferies analysts, the Mate 70 family will be less popular than the Mate 60 in terms of sales volumes. Accordingly, by the end of this year, Huawei is unlikely to be able to supply 48 million smartphones of all models to the market, and for its competitors in the Chinese market this is good news . In the third quarter, Huawei ranked second in the Chinese domestic market, and over the previous four quarters it shipped more than 10 million smartphones. A couple of years ago, it could claim only 4.1 million smartphones shipped per quarter.
Canalys analysts believe that the decline in demand for Huawei’s flagship smartphones is natural, because the release of the Mate 60 family was at one time symbolic in nature, personifying the restoration of the company’s business after several years of being under US sanctions. Canalys experts expect the Mate 70 family of smartphones to be slightly more popular than their predecessors, largely due to improved availability of production capacity required to produce their key components. However, Jefferies analysts believe that Huawei will not be able to completely overcome the shortage of components for the Mate 70 family of smartphones.