Huawei is seeing joy in the decline of the Mate 70 phone, say analysts By Reuters

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Huawei is seeing little consumer excitement in China for its newly launched Mate 70 smartphone, which could impact the Chinese tech giant’s total shipments for the year to the benefit of Apple (NASDAQ: ) and other Chinese brands , said seller Jeffery.

Jefferies said in a paper published on Thursday that their observation of online discussions after the launch of the Mate 70 on Tuesday was that there was “a little excitement”, based on the frequency of reviews and online comments.

It now sees the risk of the first estimate that has seen Huawei ship 48 million phones this year, as the previous product, the Pura 70, had shipped only 5 million units since its launch in April this year, Jefferies said.

The Mate 70’s predecessor, the Mate 60 which marked Huawei’s return to high-end smartphones when it was launched last year, had shipped 12-13 million units so far, below their initial estimates of 15-16 million.

“We believe that the storage capacity of the Mate 70 may be lower than the Mate 60,” analysts said.

“It looks like our forecast for Huawei shipments of 48 million this year is on the downside, which is good for the iPhone and other brands.”

Huawei did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Huawei has touted the Mate 70 as the most powerful Mate phone but analysts and consumers have said that improvements over its predecessor seem limited.

While the Mate 60 made a big splash by revealing that Huawei was able to overcome age-old US sanctions and instead develop an improved chip, it found it difficult to make major improvements in terms of performance and production yield, Reuters reported.

This led to shortages of the Mate 60 in the first few months of its launch and Jefferies said it expects supply bottlenecks related to Mate 70 chip production as well.

Toby Zhu, an analyst at Consultancy Canalys, said that consumer reaction to Huawei’s new phone is inevitable, as the industry and consumer hype will naturally subside after Huawei’s comeback.

On the contrary, he added that he expects the sales volume of the Mate 70 to show a slower growth compared to the Mate 60 series, partly due to the insufficient production capacity of the flagship.

The patriotic sentiment surrounding Huawei’s technological achievements helped fuel its market stability and strengthened competition with other players.

Huawei is ranked as the No.2 smartphone vendor in China in the third quarter of 2024, with shipments exceeding 10 million units for the fourth consecutive quarter, according to research firm Canalys.

This is a significant increase from the second quarter of 2022, when just 4.1 million units were shipped.