Chinese smartphone maker Huawei Technologies is eyeing a global comeback, boosting the number of markets where it sells phones equipped with high-performance chips—developed in-house to sidestep US sanctions—to about 60.
At the end of 2024, large billboards for Huawei’s latest foldable smartphone, the Mate X6, were spotted in high-profile locations around the world in cities like Hong Kong, Dubai, and Kuala Lumpur.
The Mate X6 was released in mainland China and Malaysia in December 2024 and in Hong Kong on January 8. It will soon be available in several European countries. Based on Huawei’s regional websites, the number of countries and regions where the Mate X6 is available has expanded to more than 30, including the Middle East and South America.
The phone sells for EUR 1,999 (USD 2,050) in Europe, 4% higher than the latest foldable smartphone with similar performance capabilities from Samsung Electronics.
The Mate X6 is equipped with the latest version of Huawei’s Kirin proprietary chipsets, boasting improved video processing and other capabilities. The company said the smoothness of video watched on a subway and the speed of recovering a connection after leaving an elevator or tunnel have both increased by between 60–80%.
Kirin chipsets are systems-on-chips (SoC), integrated circuits that combine functions like processing and memory onto a single chip. They are capable of the Chinese equivalent of 5G high-speed communications without relying on US technology. These chips were first installed in the Mate 60 phone released in China in August 2023 and have been evolving with each new phone model since then.
They are also installed in the Pura 70 phone, released in April 2024, which has been shipped to about 60 countries and regions. Although Huawei’s latest models are not sold in the US, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and some other markets, the number is steadily increasing.
Huawei has been bolstering in-house chip development due to US measures first put in place in 2019 to restrict its access to US technology.
The restrictions prohibited the company from doing business with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, cutting off its supply of high-performance chips. For Huawei’s smartphone operating systems (OS), the use of Google’s Android was also curtailed.
From 2021 to the first half of 2023, Huawei had no choice but to use semiconductors made by US-based Qualcomm that only supported slower 4G communications, while its restricted OS access was also a hindrance. Its global market share, in which it held the top spot in the April-June 2020 period, plummeted.
By 2023, the number of countries and regions with Huawei facilities that handle after-sales services for smartphones had fallen by half from 2020’s figure of 105, according to disclosure documents. Based on data from a research company, the overseas portion of Huawei’s smartphone shipments fell from 30% to less than 10% over the same span.
The new Kirin chips appear to be designed by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon and produced by Chinese contract chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Company (SMIC). Yields were initially low due to a lack of technical capabilities, but many in the chip industry believe that HiSilicon’s design capabilities and SMIC’s yields have both improved.
In a potential sign that costs have come down, the chips used in Huawei’s low-cost Changxiang 70X smartphone—released in China on January 3—have been switched from Qualcomm to Kirin.
In terms of chip technology, Kirin is a 7-nanometer product, less advanced than the 3-nm products used in the latest smartphones from other major manufacturers. Facing difficulties in closing that gap further due to US sanctions, Huawei is trying to compensate using its in-house OS.
Smartphones to be released in China in the future will be equipped with HarmonyOS Next, the company’s first fully in-house OS. Smartphones sold overseas currently use an Android-based OS, but the company is considering switching those as well in the future.
“Over the past six years, we have experienced countless moments of darkness, frustration, and bewilderment,” Huawei deputy chairwoman and CFO Sabrina Meng, who is serving as rotating chairperson for 2025, said in the company’s annual year-end message in December. The remarks were a possible reference to the struggles brought on by US restrictions.
“But we gave it our all and have come to understand the true meaning of conviction,” Meng said. “Time and again, we’ve seen the impossible made possible.”