Huawei to take on iPhone 16 line in China with the Mate 70 series this coming September،
According to
Huawei Center, the Mate 70 series will be released next September, timed to take on the iPhone 16 range, at least in China. Last October, the iPhone 15 Pro Max was the best-selling smartphone in China with a market share of 5%, compared to 4% for the Mate 60 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro. For the entire fourth quarter of 2023, Apple had a 20.2% share of the Chinese smartphone market, while Huawei was third with 15.2% after a 71.1% year-over-year increase thanks to the Mate 60
series.
For the year as a whole, Apple is in the lead with 17.3% of smartphone sales in the world's leading smartphone purchasing country. Huawei's former sub-brand, Honor, comes in second with a 17.1% share. Huawei was not in the top five. Weibo blogger @SmartPikachu claims that the Mate 70 line could become the most powerful handset series on the market later this year. This seems impossible unless Huawei can access cutting-edge application processors built using a 3nm process node. Currently, SMIC is unable to produce chips with a node below 7nm.
The Huawei Mate 70 series is the subject of this Weibo post from @SmartPikachu
Lower process nodes mean smaller transistors, which means more transistors can fit in a chip. The higher the number of transistors in a chip, the more powerful and/or energy efficient it is. We could see a new Kirin chip powering the Mate 70 line, but since SMIC can't buy an extreme ultraviolet lithography machine from ASML, breaking the 7nm barrier will be extremely difficult for SMIC and Huawei.
Huawei's next flagship series is the photography-based P70 series. Huawei is also reportedly working on the Pocket S2, the company's second-generation clamshell foldable. As for the Mate 70, @SmartPikachu says the Mate 70 could sport a quad-curved display. It could also debut 5.5G technology and include a 1-inch type camera sensor and a screen with thinner, more uniform bezels.
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