Huawei’s phone comes with HarmonyOS but doesn’t support 5G due to US sanctions
Chinese telecommunications equipment giant Huawei
Technologies’ latest flagship smartphone does not support 5G connections as the
company continues to lose relevance in the mobile phone market under
Washington’s ban on access to US technologies.
The P50 and P50 Pro, the company’s newest top-tier phones,
will not support 5G, said Richard Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei’s consumer
business group, during a virtual launch event on Thursday evening.
“US sanctions over the past two years have limited our
development of 5G smartphones,” Yu said. “We can only use 5G chips to provide
4G functionality.”
Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 4G chip, the P50 will
be available for purchase from September in China starting at 4,488 yuan
(US$695). The versions of the P50 Pro with 256 and 512 gigabytes of storage
will feature the in-house designed 5-nm Kirin 9000 5G chip and be available
starting in early August, according to Yu.
Both models will be the first smartphones to ship with the
company’s own HarmonyOS 2, an alternative to Google’s Android. Huawei said over
40 million people have updated their phones to the new operating system since
its launch in June.
The launch of the P50 and P50 Pro comes months after
Huawei’s founder Ren Zhengfei called for accelerating the company’s pivot to
software and diversifying its sources of revenue to survive the scourge of the
US trade bans.
Huawei’s handset business took a hit last year with the
company posting its slowest revenue growth in the past decade due to sanctions
imposed under former US President Donald Trump, which barred global chip makers
from supplying the Shenzhen-based giant.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the
Taiwan foundry that had manufactured most of Huawei’s chips, halted shipments
in September last year when the ban took effect.
Huawei, in an effort to conserve its dwindling resources,
spun off its budget handset brand, Honour, and sold it to a consortium led by
the Shenzhen government to ensure the sub-brand’s survival.
In the second quarter of 2021, Huawei fell out of the top
five in China for the first time in more than seven years, according to
research firm Canalys. Xiaomi, which moved up to third place after Vivo and
Oppo, grew its domestic shipments by 35 per cent as its scrambles to fill the
void left by Huawei.
Huawei is currently the sixth most popular brand in China
with a 9 per cent market share, a stark contrast from the same quarter last
year when it ranked number one with a 44.3 per cent share of the market.
The results are not surprising, said Canalys analyst Nicole
Peng.
“There was a higher demand for Huawei devices than what
Huawei can supply realistically,” she said, noting that shipments of Huawei
dropped dramatically due to lack of components.
With the release of the P50 delayed by more than a quarter
from its usual launch in March, the 4G version of the P50 will be a critical
test for Huawei to see if its brand would be able to buck the general market
transition towards 5G, according to Peng.
Data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology
(MIIT) showed China has built the world’s largest 5G infrastructure with a
total of 900,000 5G base stations across the country. Smartphone makers have
accelerated their release of 5G-enabled phones as mobile operators offer
generous deals on 5G service.
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