According to a research firm, Huawei Technologies has sold 1.6 million units of its Mate 60 Pro smartphones in just six weeks. This comes at a time when the global smartphone market is experiencing a slowdown, but Huawei is defying the trend with strong demand for its high-end smartphones. Out of these 1.6 million sales, more than 400,000 units were sold in the last two weeks, which coincided with the launch of Apple’s iPhone 15 on the mainland. Counterpoint Research reported that in the first 17 days after its launch, iPhone 15 sales were down 4.5% compared to the iPhone 14, although specific figures were not provided.
Huawei’s premium Mate 60 Pro phone, which was launched in late August, has been in high demand and has been selling out quickly. This phone is believed to use a domestically made chip, which marks a significant breakthrough for Huawei in the face of years of U.S. technology sanctions against the company. Counterpoint senior analyst Ivan Lam noted that the phone’s popularity has created the appearance of perpetual unavailability.
It is worth noting that the overall global smartphone market has contracted by 8% to its lowest third-quarter level in a decade due to subdued demand for major brands. However, Huawei, its former unit Honor, and Transsion Group were the only brands to record year-on-year growth in that period. In China, August smartphone shipments remained largely flat, rising just 0.03% year on year to 18.99 million handsets, according to the China Academy of Information and Communications (CAICT).