After reportedly selling 30 million Mate 60 phones, Huawei is slowing down production for a reason،
The end of summer and the beginning of autumn 2023 was indeed a very interesting period for the mobile phone industry: the iPhone 15 range was launched and Huawei unveiled its 5G compatible Mate 60 – a phone which wasn't supposed to be. After all, the United States placed some restrictions on Huawei, and its creation kept some U.S. officials up at night after its announcement. This September will be even more interesting: that's when the iPhone 16 series and Mate 70 will be presented to the public. . We'll see what hardware the Mate 70 uses… and we'll also check out Apple's progress in AI. The Cupertino giant failed to do its AI homework with the iPhone15 and lagging behind the competition, it is therefore obligatory in 2024 to catch up (and then follow). Speaking of AI, it's what's slowing down the production pace of Huawei's Mate 60 lineup.
There is an exclusivity Reuters report that says there is such a thirst for Huawei's AI chips that the Chinese tech giant has decided to prioritize AI over its high-end Mate 60 phones.
You see, Huawei uses the same facility that produces both its Ascend AI chips and the Kirin chips that power its Apple iPhone rival and, according to insiders, production has been crippled by a low yield rate – Yield is the percentage of acceptable chips. produced relative to the maximum number of chips on a wafer. If you care about costs and income, you will naturally want high-yielding rates!
Since 2019 US sanctions reduced access to advanced chipmaking tools (for national security reasons) and the smartphone industry took a major hit, Chinese customers have now turned to alternatives national. Huawei's Ascend AI chips are the answer to US giant Nvidia's AI chips (the AI chip market was 90% controlled by Nvidia, but that is about to change) and the Ascend 910B is widely considered to be the chip Most competitive non-Nvidia AI available in China. .
Huawei prioritized production of these Ascend chips over Kirin chips for the Mate 60, slowing down phone manufacturing.
It's unclear exactly when this prioritization began, but this information is consistent with previous reports about Huawei's inability to meet high demand for the 5G Mate 60 lineup.
This is a “first world problem” (as the web generation would say) because Huawei would have sold more than 30 million Mate 60 units.
