A Cold Shower for Huawei’s Ambitions to Challenge Apple

Huawei's newly launched Mate XT has received high praise as a competitor to Apple. However, there’s an undeniable truth that many can observe in this lopsided battle.

Martin Yang, Senior Emerging Technology Analyst at Oppenheimer Investment Consulting, mentioned in an interview with CNBC that Huawei’s chip technology still lags behind the most advanced levels by about two or three years.

He explained that the competitive gap between Huawei and Apple in the field of system-on-chip (SoC) technology continues to widen. "Huawei still cannot use processes below 7 nanometers."

When Huawei released its Mate 60 smartphone last year, it made a breakthrough in chip technology by using advanced 7-nanometer chips produced in mainland China. This ability to achieve such research and development speed surprised many analysts at the time, as the U.S. had blocked China from acquiring advanced semiconductor technology through trade restrictions.

Thanks to the success of the Mate 60, Huawei regained significant market share from Apple in the mainland Chinese smartphone market, which is currently the largest smartphone market in the world.

However, when Huawei launched its new foldable Mate XT this week, the company did not announce any major breakthroughs in chip technology. On the other hand, Martin Yang noted that Apple currently has its second-generation 3nm chip, which has demonstrated 10% to 15% better performance compared to last year’s mobile phones. He believes that in the future, Huawei’s marketing focus will shift away from chips, and the chip’s shortcomings will be downplayed while the Mate XT stands out as the first tri-fold phone on the market.

Huawei has opened pre-orders for the Mate XT since the 7th. According to Huawei’s official website, the Mate XT has received 3.5 million pre-orders as of the 10th. Martin Yang pointed out that there was a significant number of pre-orders for the Mate 60 last year, but there haven’t been many precedents for actual sales. He believes that the Mate XT may not sell 3 million units globally.

Navkendar Singh, an analyst at market research firm IDC, also mentioned in another CNBC interview on Tuesday that although Huawei dominates the foldable smartphone market, it remains a niche market as consumers weigh factors like price and functionality.