Huawei P70 series stirs up the high-end market, and the competitive pressure of Apple and other mobile phone manufacturers has increased sharply

Author | "Caijing" new media writer Yan Xiaohan editor | Gao Suying

There is no high-profile press conference, there is no official fanfare warm-up, and last year's P60 series of mobile phones are in full swing What is very different is that this year's Huawei P70 series is quietly but so "eye-catching". Huawei announced that the P-series will be upgraded to the Pura series, and on April 18, Huawei launched the HUAWEI Pura 70 Series Pioneer Program.

On April 19, Huawei provided information to the new media of "Caijing", showing that the Pura 70 series contains four versions, with starting prices ranging from 5499 yuan to 9999 yuan. Among them, the Pro+ and Ultra versions are only available in 512GB and 1TB versions, compared to the previous generation P60, the Pura 70 standard version does not have a 128GB version, and the price of the 256GB version has also increased.

Since the launch of the P series in 2012, the P series and the Mate series have jointly supported Huawei's competition in the high-end market. The industry believes that Huawei's return to the high-end smartphone market has not only boosted its own terminal business, but also brought new vitality to the entire domestic mobile phone market. However, this also means that the market will be more competitive. Huawei's strong comeback has made other mobile phone manufacturers feel a lot of pressure, especially those brands that are also positioned in the high-end market.

Behind the booming sales, Huawei has accelerated its return

After the Huawei Pura 70 series mobile phones were released on official channels, sales were booming, and some versions even showed "temporarily out of stock" within a minute. In a Huawei authorized experience store in Beijing, the author saw that although the four versions of the Pura 70 series have been put on the shelves, the clerk said that they are all prototypes and will not be sold to the public for the time being. At present, the official flagship stores of Tmall and JD.com, two e-commerce channels, have also been sold out.

According to Huawei's terminal, the Pura 70 series is equipped with HarmonyOS 4.2, which upgrades the Beidou satellite message and connects to the Pangu model. At the same time, in terms of image, the series uses a super-concentrated telescopic camera, and the capabilities of portrait, night scene, telephoto, and video have been further improved.

Li Zegang, chief analyst of Omdia smartphones, told the author that Huawei's current style of play has become clearer, the Mate series is positioned for high-end business people, and the Pura series is based on Huawei's design language, culture, etc., positioning is more trendy, and the image function is also emphasized in the Pura series, including the variable aperture of the series, and the telescopic main camera is a more innovative approach in the industry.

So, can Huawei's Pura 70 series continue the strong growth of the Mate 60 series? He believes that Huawei's Pura 70 series shipments are expected to achieve significant growth this year in the context of Huawei's low shipment base, the weakening competitiveness of its main competitor Apple, and the gradual recovery of the domestic mobile phone market.

In the past few years, Huawei has experienced a sharp decline in mobile phone shipments due to sanctions. However, Huawei has now successfully restored its supply chain, broken through technical bottlenecks, and revitalized its sales channels. In addition, Huawei has always been known for its excellent product capabilities, which is an important reason why it can stand out from the fierce competition.

Taking into account the above factors, Major General Ding believes that Huawei's mobile phone shipments this year are expected to rebound strongly on the basis of a low base. As Huawei's important flagship product this year, the market performance of the Pura 70 series will directly affect Huawei's overall shipments.

Tianfeng International analyst Ming-Chi Kuo previously predicted that in 2024, if the demand for mobile phone inventory replenishment is strong, Pura 70 series shipments are expected to increase by 230% year-on-year to 13-15 million units this year, and if demand slows down, it is also expected to reach a year-on-year growth rate of 150%.

In addition, the impact of Huawei's return to high-end on the smartphone market has also become the focus of attention of all parties. For itself, the release of Huawei's high-end mobile phones obviously plays an important role in boosting the terminal business. Last year, Huawei's device business ended two consecutive years of decline and returned to double-digit growth. According to the 2023 annual report released by Huawei, its second largest source of revenue, the terminal business, increased by 17.3% year-on-year to 251.5 billion yuan, which is about 35% of Huawei's revenue.

The high-end market has made waves again

For the entire domestic mobile phone market, Huawei's return not only brings market vitality, but also means more fierce market competition. Previously, the hot sales of Huawei's Meta 60 series allowed Huawei to quickly seize the domestic smartphone market share. According to Counterpoint Research data, in Q1 2023, Huawei's mobile phone market share in China was only 9.2%, and in Q4, Huawei's mobile phone market share rose to the third place in the market with a market share of 15.2%.

This offensive has continued into this year, with data from the above-mentioned agencies showing that in the first six weeks of 2024, overall smartphone sales in China fell by 7% year-on-year, while Huawei increased by 64% year-on-year and ranked second with a market share of 17%, while Apple's iPhone sales fell by 24% year-on-year, which made Apple's ranking in the domestic mobile phone market slip to fourth place.

In fact, in the context of the weak demand of the entire domestic mobile phone market and the continuous compression of profit margins in the low-end market, many domestic mobile phone manufacturers are "rolling" to the more resistant high-end market. At the beginning of 2024, OPPO, Xiaomi, and vivo have released high-end flagship products, accelerating the high-end strategy by innovating and iterating on systems, images, screens, folding screens, etc., as well as accessing AI large models.

At a time when domestic mobile phone brands continue to innovate their products, the price of some brand products has approached or exceeded 10,000 yuan, for example, in February this year, Xiaomi released the Xiaomi 14 Ultra titanium special edition, and the price reached 8999 yuan, and the starting price of the Magic V2 RSR Porsche Design mobile phone released by Honor in January this year reached 15999 yuan.

BCI data shows that in November 2023, in the domestic high-end mobile phone market of more than 4,000 yuan, Apple ranked first in the industry with a market share of 50.8%, but Huawei and Xiaomi gained 22.3% and 14.4% of the market share respectively.

Major General Ding said that after Huawei's return, all domestic mobile phone manufacturers will be affected, and Apple may be the most affected player. The reason is that Huawei's market is positioned as a high-end market, and the overall high-end brand pull of domestic mobile phone manufacturers is still in the process of construction, and there is a significant gap with Huawei. Huawei's Mate and Pura series can benchmark the iPhone, especially in the 9000-10000 yuan market, other domestic mobile phone manufacturers are not competitive, Huawei eats Apple's market share, so it is expected that Apple's market share will shrink significantly this year.

However, the return of Huawei, a strong competitor, will still bring greater competitive pressure to many domestic mobile phone manufacturers. Major General Ding said that in the future, the motivation and pressure of technological innovation and iteration of mobile phone manufacturers will become greater. In addition, Huawei's main focus is still on the domestic market, which will force domestic mobile phone manufacturers to accelerate the expansion of overseas markets.