Huawei launched the Mate 70 series in an event in Shenzhen on November 26, 2024. The phones are the primary able to running Huawei’s latest operating system called HarmonyOS NEXT.
Huawei
Huawei on Tuesday launched the Mate 70 series of smartphones that may run on the corporate’s latest self-developed operating system, because the Chinese giant continues its push toward technological independence within the wake of U.S. sanctions.
The Mate 70 is the successor of the Mate 60, which was released last yr and sent shockwaves through the tech and political worlds. It contained a semiconductor that many had thought Huawei and China would find difficult to provide, given the widespread the U.S. restrictions which have looked to chop off the world’s second-largest economy from leading-edge chips. Huawei was separated from Google’s Android operating system in 2019, forcing the Chinese tech giant to develop its own software.
Huawei didn’t mention what chip the phone was running, but Richard Yu, the pinnacle of Huawei’s consumer and auto businesses, said that the Mate 70 can operate on HarmonyOS NEXT — the corporate’s first fully self-developed mobile operating system.
Huawei is hoping that the OS can turn into a viable alternative to Android and Apple’s iOS in China. The corporate’s early versions of HarmonyOS were built using open-source Android code.
Nonetheless, HarmonyOS NEXT reportedly not uses that code, marking a siginficant update in Huawei’s software development.
“HarmonyOS Next has good potential as a substitute in China,” Will Wong, senior research manager at IDC, told CNBC. “This just isn’t only due to Huawei’s brand name but additionally since it has been putting effort into attracting developers to hitch its ecosystem.”
The corporate’s consumer business was crippled after various White House restrictions removed its access to key tech from chips to software. But with the Mate 60 launch last yr, Huawei’s business in China has been revived, putting pressure on Apple.
Huawei began taking reservations for the device earlier this month and has racked up greater than 3 million reservations for the device on one Chinese e-commerce website. This may occasionally not necessarily translate into sales.
The corporate talked up the substitute intelligence features of its device, including photo editing tools. It comes at a time when smartphone makers wish to lure customers in with latest AI tools. In China, the race is on amongst domestic players to make an impression with their AI tools before the launch of Apple Intelligence within the country.
The Mate 70 series is available in three varieties — the Mate 70, Mate 70 Pro and Mate 70 Pro+. The Mate 70 starts at 5,499 ($759) Chinese yuan, while the Mate 70 Pro+ starts at 8,499 yuan.
On Tuesday, Huawei also took the wraps off its latest foldable smartphone called the Mate X6 which starts at 12,999 yuan.
Latest OS in focus
Over the past yr, Huawei appears to be bolstered by the success of its devices in China and, posting growth that has propelled it back into the list of top five smartphone players within the country.
The corporate has looked to display its technological capabilities publicly from the trifold smartphone launched in September to HarmonyOS NEXT in a bid to point out it just isn’t being held back by U.S. sacntions.
Along with the Mate 70 series and Mate X6 foldable being able to running the brand new OS, Huawei said a few of its older devices will receive the software upgrade over the approaching months.
The success of operating systems is commonly predicated on the suite of its available apps. Through the launch event, Yu showed how, as a part of HarmonyOS NEXT, the AI can interact with popular apps reminiscent of Alipay, one in every of China’s biggest mobile payment services.
For now, Huawei’s latest phones alongside HarmonyOS NEXT are very much focused on the Chinese market, as the corporate still faces mounting challenges abroad.
