With more than three million pre-orders for its most recent smartphone, Huawei has raised a lot of expectations just hours before it is scheduled to formally introduce new products on Tuesday. The goal of the company is to outperform Apple’s iPhone 16.
The Shenzhen-based company, which has been a hotspot in the growing digital battle between Washington and Beijing, is currently making a remarkable recovery with the release of highly popular models like the Mate 60 Pro and Mate X5. Huawei recorded double-digit gains in profit and revenue in August, despite US fines.
Preorders for the company’s triple-decker Mate XT smartphone, which went live this past Saturday, are another indication of its continuous recovery.
Richard Yu, president of the group’s consumer business, announced on Chinese social media on Monday that it would unveil new products at 2:30 p.m. Beijing time the following day, while sharing a partial image of the triple-decker phone.
“It’s an epoch-making product that others have only dreamed of having but failed to achieve,” he previously said on Weibo. “After five years of dedication and investment, we are making science fiction a reality. Stay tuned for Huawei’s masterpiece!”
Tuesday’s product launch comes just hours after archrival Apple (AAPL) unveiled a slew of new products, including the iPhone 16, Apple’s first smartphone designed specifically for generative artificial intelligence (AI). It’s a feature the company hopes will help convince customers to upgrade.
Amber Liu, a research manager at market research firm Canalys, said Huawei’s rapid recovery “directly challenges” Apple’s performance in China, its second-largest market that accounts for more than 20% of its global shipments.
This also comes after Chinese smartphone makers dominated the top five spots nationwide on a quarterly basis for the first time ever, he said, pushing Apple into sixth place.
“The proximity of Huawei and Apple’s product launches signals the beginning of a new wave of competition in the Chinese premium market,” Liu told CNN. Key areas of competition will include high-end products, software capabilities and AI deployment, he added.
Apple said generative AI, like ChatGPT, on its iPhone 16 would allow users to create text and images with natural language prompts. It’s unclear if the Mate XT includes any AI features.
Jene Park, senior analyst for the foldable smartphone practice at Counterpoint Research, said the new phone is believed to have a double-folding structure and a large screen size of more than 10 inches.
“I think this latest attempt could bring about significant changes in the display size of folding books, which currently range between seven and eight inches,” he said.
Analysts say the success of the launch will depend in part on the phone’s price, which has not yet been revealed. Liu believes it will be “substantially priced” due to the high manufacturing cost and its premium positioning.
Sales of Huawei’s flagship smartphones rose 72% in the first five months of 2024, compared with the same period last year, Yu said in June, underscoring the company’s ambitions to return to the top despite severe U.S. restrictions.
US policymakers have long claimed that Huawei poses a national security risk and that the Chinese government could use the company’s equipment for spying. The company has repeatedly denied those allegations, but that hasn’t stopped some US allies (such as the UK) from limiting Huawei’s role in building 5G networks.
The US ban prevented companies such as Google ( GOOGL ) from supplying new Huawei devices running its version of the Android operating system. Those restrictions dealt a major blow to the Chinese firm’s smartphone ambitions at the time, with some analysts predicting that the Huawei phone would become “a brick.”
Now, the company is getting back on top and also venturing into new businesses. Last year, it launched an electric sedan to compete with Tesla’s Model S and has big ambitions in artificial intelligence.
Earlier this year, Nvidia (NVDA) named Huawei as a top competitor in several areas, including the production of processors that power AI systems.
