Huawei unveils Mate 90 phones, leans on homegrown chip design to offset US curbs

Apple

01/10/2026 04:00

    * Huawei exec says company still faces constraints in supply
of advanced chips
    * Latest phones run on Huawei's homegrown, Android-free
HarmonyOS 7 operating system 
    * Launch expected to test whether Huawei can keep advancing
its smartphone lineup 

    By Che  Pan and Eduardo Baptista
       BEIJING, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Huawei Technologies  HWT.UL 
unveiled its Mate 90 smartphone series on Thursday, betting on
its in-house operating system and redesigned chip architecture
to boost its performance in the face of US curbs on shipments of
advanced semiconductors. 
    Speaking to reporters on Tuesday ahead of the launch, Huawei
consumer business chief Richard Yu said the company still faces
constraints in the supply of advanced chips. 
     "Advanced semiconductor capacity remains very limited in
China, and Huawei's Ascend AI chips also draw on that same
capacity," Yu said. 
     "The capacity for smartphone chips remains tight, even
though rising smartphone prices have curbed shipment volumes
(for handsets)." 
     The launch will test whether Huawei can keep advancing its
smartphone lineup despite US restrictions that have limited its
access to cutting-edge chipmaking tools, forcing the company to
develop alternative ways to boost processor performance. 
    The Mate 90 series succeeds the Mate 80 line launched in
November 2025. Premium models, including the Mate 90 Pro Max,
are powered by Huawei's Kirin 9050 Pro, a system-on-chip built
with a technique Huawei calls "LogicFolding". 
    The method restructures a chip's internal wiring in three
dimensions rather than the conventional flat, two-dimensional
layout, allowing for denser, faster processing — though it
requires more wafers to produce. 
    Eric Xu, Huawei's rotating chairman, said at a media event
in Shanghai last month that supply of the company's Ascend 950
AI chips could not meet domestic demand due to capacity
constraints.
    Yu said China's advanced chipmaking still relies on deep
ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines, and that while extreme
ultraviolet (EUV) technology is "valuable", Chinese
manufacturers are still working towards it. 
    Huawei would use more chips built with the LogicFolding
technique in future smartphones, Yu said.
    Huawei did not disclose who manufactures the Kirin 9050 Pro.
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC)  0981.HK ,
China's top logic foundry, is widely believed to produce the
Kirin chips used in Huawei's Mate series as well as its Ascend
AI processors. 
     SMIC did not respond to a request for comment. 
     Huawei's latest phones run on its homegrown, Android-free
HarmonyOS 7 operating system, which Huawei says supports more
than 450,000 apps and services. Huawei has not yet revealed a
target price for the Mate 90 series. 
     
    HIGHER PRICES FOR HANDSETS
    Chinese smartphone makers are grappling with rising memory
and component costs, leading them to raise prices and shift more
shipments toward premium models.
    Yu said rising memory prices had added an average of $200 to
the cost of each handset, weighing on Huawei's profit margins.
    "We have to increase prices as well, yet at a slower pace,"
Yu said. 
    China's domestic smartphone shipments fell 7% year-on-year
between January and August, even as Huawei's shipments in the
country rose 13%, according to research firm International Data
Corporation (IDC). 
    The average selling price of smartphones in China climbed
11.3% year-on-year in the second quarter to $543, while the
average price of Huawei smartphones declined 14.7% to $628, IDC
data showed. 
     
    APPLE VS HUAWEI FOLDABLE      
    Apple  AAPL.O  announced its first foldable phone, the
iPhone Duo, last month, entering a category long dominated by
Samsung Electronics  005930.KS  and Chinese rivals such as
Huawei.
    Yu said he welcomed Apple's entry to the market. 
    "I am very pleased to see the launch of a similar product by
our peers," Yu said. 
    Huawei currently holds about a 75% share in China's foldable
phone market, he said. 
    "Between September 10 and 13, our Pura X Max foldable phone
sales shot up 76% week-on-week right after Apple Duo's launch,"
Yu said, adding that shipments of the Pura X Max, which is
similar in size to the iPhone Duo, had topped 1.2 million units
in China since its April release. 
    Apple is expected to ship 6 million iPhone Duo units in
2026, with China — the world's largest market for foldable
phones — accounting for nearly a quarter of that total,
according to data from Counterpoint Research. 

    (Reporting by Che Pan and Eduardo Baptista; Editing by Anne
Marie Roantree and Tom Hogue)
 ((che.pan@thomsonreuters.com))