At noon on August 29, Huawei announced that in order to commemorate the cumulative shipment of Mate series mobile phones reaching 100 million units, Huawei Mate 60 Pro Pioneer Program was launched, and began to sell flagship mobile phones Mate 60 Pro in Huawei Mall, priced at 6999 yuan.
Publicly available configurations include satellite phones, Harmony System 4.0, second-generation Kunlun glass, self-developed basalt architecture, Pangu artificial intelligence large models, and Sony lens triple cameras.
In addition to the technical configuration, the Mate 60 Pro adopts a concentric design that continues the symmetry of the central axis. Inspired by the Earth color card, the colors are designed to reproduce the colorful rivers and mountains, and are now available in four options: Yachuan Qing, White Sand Silver, Nannuo Purple and Yadan Black.
The chip model has not been officially disclosed, and the signal specifications are not displayed. On the high-profile chip issue, it seems that the official wants to hide a hand.
After the first users got the physical machine, the answer was immediately revealed.
Netizens confirmed that the chip uses Kirin 9000S through disassembly, and found that the network speed reached 500Mbps through network speed testing, which has reached the 5G standard.
The return of Kirin and 5G has triggered a heated discussion about Huawei across the network.
This marks the completion of commercial mass production of the domestic semiconductor industry chain. This wave of enthusiasm has even led to a sharp rise in Huawei's concept stocks and cloud computing and big data sectors.
It is worth playing that it is just in time for US Secretary of Commerce Raimondo's visit to China. The staunch China hardliner has threatened: "If Huawei continues to advance research and development, it will be further sanctioned." ”
The counterattack under the sanctions was a victory in the initial battle.
Four rounds of sanctions have been stepped up
On May 15, 2019, then-U.S. President Donald Trump issued a presidential decree prohibiting the use of information and communication technology services in hostile countries and authorizing the U.S. Department of Commerce to implement it.
On the same day, the US Department of Commerce and its subordinate agency, the Bureau of Industry and Security, announced specific measures to implement the presidential decree and add Huawei to the "Entity List". According to the relevant policy, if a US company wants to sell US products to Huawei, it must obtain prior approval from the US Department of Commerce. The first batch of Huawei affiliates and related individuals to join the Entity List reached more than 100. In August of the same year, the U.S. Department of Commerce revised the Entity List, adding another 46 Huawei subsidiaries to the Entity List.
After the first round of sanctions, Google responded positively only four days later, announcing that Huawei could not obtain Google's official Android system updates, components and app pre-installation. In addition, according to foreign media reports, Intel, AutoNavi and ARM and other companies have also suspended cooperation with Huawei.
By September 2019, when Huawei released the Mate 30 Pro, the revenue of the overseas mobile phone market declined significantly, mainly due to the impact of consumers' inability to use Google's GMS ecosystem.
In May 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security began the third round of sanctions, amending the Foreign Manufacturing Direct Product Rule (FDP) to include chips based on semiconductor designs derived from U.S. software and technology and based on semiconductor manufacturing equipment on the U.S. Department of Commerce Control List (CCL). In practice, it even extends its jurisdiction to fabs in other countries, such as TSMC and Samsung.
In August 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added 38 Huawei subsidiaries to the Entity List, amended the Foreign Manufacturing Direct Product Regulation (FDP) to expand the product scope to any product, and clarified that Huawei and its affiliates on the Entity List are subject to export controls as purchasers, intermediate trustees, ultimate trustees, and end users. So far, the four rounds of sanctions against Huawei have reached an unprecedented ultra-high pressure intensity.
The chip industry is highly integrated and heavily dependent on globalization, and Huawei, which cannot solve the localization problem, has become a very useful bargaining chip in Sino-US business negotiations.
Huawei's 5G chip supply chain is under constant threat. When the Mate 40 series was released in October 2020, it began to distinguish between 4G and 5G versions, and by September 2022, the Mate 50 series was released only in 4G versions, and the Mate 50 series has also become a victim of sanctions.
Under the layers of code, Huawei also shouted slogans such as "survive" and "pass the cold to everyone", and began to develop Hongmeng, self-developed chips, both internal and external are extremely controversial, it is difficult to imagine what has happened in the past four years.
This year's Sino-US trade dispute has intensified, and Raimondo, as the "finale" player of the visit to China, released harsh words against Huawei before coming, and it is not difficult to guess that he wants to play the Huawei card again.
And this time, Huawei's understatement on the Mate 60 Pro is enough to deliver amazing information.
Hard apple, accidentally hurt friends
Huawei has always had a preference for preempting Apple's development conference.
According to statistics, the Mate 7, Mate 30 series, Mate 50 series and the original Mate 60 series are all a few days earlier than Apple's product launch in the same period.
And the action of early online sales, unintentionally or unintentionally, also coincided with OPPO, which held the autumn new product launch party on the same day.
OPPO's autumn conference gave high expectations, and launched a number of blockbuster products, including the new vertical folding screen mobile phone Find N3 Flip, and OPPO Watch 2 ECG version, etc., highlighting OPPO's strength and ambition in innovative design, intelligent ecology, health management and other fields. In the live broadcast of the press conference, when the price of Find N3 Flip was announced, the barrage was full of "real fragrance small fold", which also proved the sales potential of this star product.
But the return of Kirin and 5G was too explosive, sucking up most of the day's traffic.
According to IDC's latest quarterly mobile phone tracker, China's smartphone market shipped about 65.7 million units in the second quarter of 2023, down 2.1% year-on-year.
The report counts the market share of the top five smartphone manufacturers in China in the second quarter, which are OPPO, vivo, Honor, Apple, Xiaomi and Huawei (both tie). Among them, OPPO won the first place with a market share of 17.7%. Combined with the market share performance of 19.6% in the first quarter, OPPO became the first mobile phone market share in China in the first half of 2023.
Six manufacturers have launched their own flagship products this year, but from the data point of view, mobile phone consumer demand has not yet recovered, and how the second half of 2023 will be, let's wait and see.
End
For many years, the state of being stuck in the neck has made the market less and less confident, and at this time, the birth of the Mate 60 Pro seems to give the market a shot in the arm. I believe that there will be more R&D results that amaze the world.
In addition to the vanguard, more friendly forces are needed to join the counterattack and expand the victory. Guess who will be next?
【Disclaimer】The content of the article is for research and study only and does not constitute any investment advice.