No. 3 smartphone maker, Huawei, is setting its sights on Apple’s highly anticipated iPhone 8. Last year, it had shipped 139 million phones and they are hoping to push 140 million to 150 million units in 2017.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Huawei consumer devices chief, Richard Yu says their upcoming Huawei Mate 10 will be released around the same time as Apple’s new flagship and it will trump the iPhone in many aspects.
Richard Yu says that Huawei will have an even more powerful product. He added that the “The Mate 10, which has much longer battery life with a full-screen display, quicker changing speed, better photographing capability and many other features that will help us compete with Apple.”
The Huawei Mate series is their flagship phablet lineup that comes with a bigger screen and a larger battery that lasts more than a full day on a single charge. Its collaboration with Leica has also paid off in elevating Huawei’s photography credentials and its dual-camera setup is now standard on its high-end models.
As Huawei is taking a premium approach, the mobile chief also shared that they are giving up on the very low-end devices. This is due to extremely low margins and it’s not making enough profit for Huawei. The Chinese brand is continuing its pace to expand its overseas presence with priority in Europe, China and Japan where the economy is healthy and people are able to consume them.
According to early speculations, the Huawei Mate 10 could be having a 6″ screen with a tall 18:9 display aspect ratio similar to LG and Samsung. To keep up with the current flagships, it is said that it would run on a newer Kirin 970 processor that’s based on a more efficient 10nm process. The Mate 9 was launched in November last year which was rather late and the new one could be revealed sometime in September/October for a better chance of competing against the upcoming flagships from Samsung and Apple.
