An illustration of a user browsing reservation information for Huawei’s new foldable mobile phone in Suqian City, Jiangsu Province, China, on September 8, 2024.
Chief Photography | Future Publishing | Getty Images
When Huawei tries to steal the spotlight appleWhile Apple unveiled its own “tri-fold phone” on Tuesday, its chip capabilities remain a weakness despite recent breakthroughs, an analyst said.
Martin Yang, senior analyst for emerging technologies at Oppenheimer & Co., told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Tuesday that Huawei’s chips are still two to three years behind cutting-edge technology.
Yang said the technology gap for systems on a chip (SoC) that combines central processing with cellular connectivity is “widening because (Huawei) still cannot use any process below 7 nanometers.” In chip manufacturing, nano means processing The size of the transistor on the device.
The smaller the size of the transistors, the more transistors can be mounted on the chip, making it more advanced.
Huawei released its own products last year and achieved a major breakthrough. Mate 60 smartphoneincluding advanced 7nm chips from China.
How quickly Chinese companies are reaching this benchmark Exceeded many analysts’ expectations U.S. trade restrictions limit China’s access to advanced semiconductor technology.
With this success, Huawei has been able to regain market share from Apple in China, the world’s largest smartphone market.
However, unlike the Mate 50, Huawei has not announced any major breakthroughs in the chips released for its latest phones.
At the same time, Yang said that Apple is currently using the second-generation 3nm process, which has improved the performance of this year’s mobile phones by 10% to 15% compared with last year’s first-generation 3nm process.
“I don’t think the chip will be a focus area or marketing point for Huawei’s upcoming phones this week,” Yang said.
Instead, he added, the company may try to downplay this chip disadvantage during the upcoming launch week and try to emphasize that its phone is the first tri-fold phone on the market.
Huawei began accepting pre-orders for its foldable phone Mate XT on September 7. websiteAs of Tuesday, the phone had received more than 3.5 million pre-orders.
However, Companion 60RSYang said Huawei’s products released last year also had significant pre-orders but failed to translate them into actual sales.
“I don’t expect real-world shipments to be in the (3 million range),” he said.
IDC’s Navkendar Singh told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Tuesday that while Huawei dominates sales of foldable smartphones, the market remains at a disadvantage due to consumer concerns about price and features. base market.
