Huawei has another problem; it can’t meet the heavy demand for the 5G Mate 60 line،
Huawei has a new problem and this time it is not a new sanction imposed on the company by the United States.
South China Morning News, the new problem is that the company cannot meet the demand for its Mate 60 series announced at the end of August. The new handsets have stunned the tech world as they are the first models of
Huawei be powered by the company’s own Kirin 5G chips since 2020’s Mate 40 line. Since then, U.S. export rules have prevented foundries using U.S. technology to produce chips from shipping cutting-edge silicon to Huawei.
The mystery of how SMIC was able to manufacture the 7nm Kirin 9000s SoC remains unsolved
Huawei’s flagship Mate 50
series launched last year and this year’s P60 lineup both featured the 4nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 application processor (AP) that was modified to not work with 5G networks. Huawei received a license from the US Department of Commerce to import these chips. So when the Mate 60 line was introduced, controversy arose over how China’s largest foundry, SMIC, managed to make the 7nm Kirin 9000s chip for Huawei. It is a mystery that has not yet been solved. Before the Kirin 9000, SMIC was limited to the production of 14nm chipsets for smartphones.
Mate 60 Pro accounts for 60% of Mate 60 series sales
The final words on the Kirin 9000 come from Dylan Patel, chief analyst at semiconductor research firm SemiAnalysis. In a new report, Patel wrote that SMIC had good yields on its 7nm production line and that SMIC’s 7nm process node is equivalent to the N7 (7nm) node used by TSMC. Patel also wrote a comment that could worry U.S. lawmakers and officials. SMIC is, at worst, only a handful of years behind TSMC, and at most, only a few years behind Intel and Samsung, despite [US government] restrictions,” the analyst said in the report.
In China, the
reaction to the announcement of the Mate 60 series has been electric, with consumers eager to get their hands on the new Huawei 5G phones. Huawei’s announcement came less than two weeks before the iPhone 15 series unveiling and it’s possible that the Mate 60, Mate 60 Pro, Mate 60 Pro+ and Mate 60 RS have taken business away from the iPhone 15 in China .
iPhone15iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
Business has been so good that Wang Yang, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research, said: “Production capacity cannot meet demand, which is why Huawei is doing pre-orders.” » These pre-orders give Huawei time to receive more phones from its suppliers.
Huawei has offered Chinese consumers a subscription plan that promises delivery of their new Mate 60 series phone no later than 90 days after submitting a pre-order. Only one unit can be ordered and the phone will ship on a random date within 90 days. The promised delivery dates for the Huawei Mate 60 series phones range from this month to February.
SemiAnalysis analyst Patel pointed out that the gap between supply of the Mate 60 range and demand has nothing to do with the returns obtained by SMIC with its Kirin 9000s chip production. Instead, he claims that demand for Huawei’s first 5G phone since 2020 is why the supply-demand balance is so skewed toward demand for the Mate 60 series. demand for the Mate 60 series has not returned to pre-sanctions times.
Huawei sold 2.5 million units of the Mate 60 series according to research firm Canalys
For example, analytics firm Counterpoint Research claims that in the four months following its 2020 release, the Mate 40 series was called 2.6 million times. It was the first flagship phone sold by Huawei after it was placed on the US Entity List preventing the manufacturer from doing business with its US-based suppliers. The Mate 30 series launched before the announcement of US sanctions sold 7.5 million units over the same period in 2019. Counterpoint predicts that Huawei will sell 4 million units of the Mate 60 line after four months.
Research firm Canalys says that from the end of August to November 7, Huawei sold 2.5 million Mate 60 series handsets. The Mate 60 Pro accounted for 60% of the line’s sales, Canalys said. Despite these impressive numbers, Ivan Lam, principal analyst at Counterpoint, said: “But it’s also worth noting that the Mate 60 series continued to experience supply shortages, leading to limited daily sales.”
