Rumor mill says Huawei will surprise again by making another component in-house for the P70 line،
After wowing the world in August by launching its first 5G phone in three years, the Mate 60 Pro, Huawei might have another surprise coming. With the help of SMIC, China’s largest foundry, Huawei was able to bypass US sanctions to obtain the 7nm Kirin 9000s 5G SoC used in the Mate 60 series. The latest rumor based on posts seen on the Chinese platform Weibo reports that Huawei is designing and producing CMOS camera sensors through SMIC for its photography-focused (no pun intended) P70 flagship smartphone
series, expected early next year.
It is believed that Huawei is out of stock of
Sony camera sensors and cannot replenish its inventory. Indeed, Sony has reportedly ended its commercial relationship with Huawei, which cannot reassure the manufacturer since the cameras on its smartphones generally receive excellent reviews. And as noted, Huawei’s next flagship series is the P70 line. Huawei’s P series handsets are focused on photography, hence the ‘P’ in the phone series name.
Most manufacturers don’t have to go through the ordeal of producing their own camera sensors since it’s easier to purchase them from companies like Sony and
Samsung. Even Apple, which designs its local application processor (the Axx series), turns to Sony for most of the camera sensors used on the iPhone (Largan reportedly made the camera sensor used on the lens Tetraprism periscope of the iPhone 15
Pro Max).
Last year, Huawei lost its partnership with photography company Leica, forcing the company to create its own smartphone photography system, called Xmage. At this point, one has to wonder if there is anything Huawei can’t do alone after developing the HarmonyOS platform currently in use. The company also had to create its own Huawei Mobile Services, consisting of HMS Core and key services such as Huawei ID, Cloud, AppGallery, Themes, Huawei
Video, Browser and Assistant.
There was a time when Huawei was TSMC’s second-largest customer behind Apple. But thanks to US sanctions, which prevent foundries using American technology from shipping cutting-edge chips to Huawei, the latter is joining forces with SMIC and other unnamed companies to try to once again become a strong and competitive challenger in the smartphone industry, at least domestically for now.
For the record, Huawei received a license to use the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC but limited to 4G connectivity for this year’s flagship P60 series. The P60 Pro used two Sony camera sensors, the IMX888 for the 48 MP main camera and the IMX858 for the 13 MP ultra-wide-angle camera. The periscope lens used a 48MP camera sensor from OmniVision.
Will Huawei Succeed Again? We’ll probably know early next year when the P70 range launches.
