Huawei touts camera on latest premium smartphone without 5G

SHENZHEN: Huawei Technologies on Thursday (Mar 23) continued to press ahead against US pressure by launching a new smartphone with a price starting at 4,488 yuan (US$658), which it promised has a top-end camera though it would only be able to use 4G.

Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s consumer arm, spent almost an hour presenting Huawei’s self-developed XMAGE camera, now on the flagship after Leica moved its partnership with rival phonemaker Xiaomi last year, at a Chinese language-only event in Shanghai.

Huawei, also a major supplier of equipment used in 5G telecommunications networks, has been the target of successive rounds of US export controls since 2019.

Those controls cut off Huawei’s supply of chips from US companies and its access to US technology tools to design its own chips and have them manufactured by partners.

The various actions have largely hobbled Huawei’s handset business, which commanded 42 per cent of the China market in 2019, but was not among the top five sellers in China in 2022, according to data from consultancy Canalys.

The company’s former budget unit Honor claimed 18 per cent of the market last year, with 30 per cent annual growth, Canalys said.

Huawei sold Honor to a consortium of over 30 agents and dealers to keep it alive in late 2019.

Huawei also launched the more premium P60 Pro and foldable Mate X3, with prices starting at 6,988 yuan and 12,999 yuan respectively.

The smartphones will use Huawei’s home-built Harmony operating system.

US sanctions banned Alphabet’s Google from providing technical support to new Huawei phone models and access to Google Mobile Services, the bundle of developer services upon which most Android apps are based.