Going by Huawei‘s annual product cycle, the company is expected to launch the next generation Mate series smartphone in September this year. The smartphone is supposed to be powered by a new generation Kirin chip. However, the latest news emanating from the Chinese media is that Huawei won’t be releasing a flagship Mate series mobile phone this year.

If that turns out to be true, this will be the first time that Huawei won’t be releasing a Mate series phone model since 2013 when the first Mate series model was launched. Huawei is yet to formally respond to the rumor, though.

The Chinese company has been experiencing a rough ride after the US government imposed a trade embargo on the company. This has prevented the company from accessing key components for the manufacture of its smartphones. The company was able to release the Mate 40 series last year but it was in short supply. This year, the company is yet to release the P50. The smartphone was only teased recently at the HarmonyOS 2 announcement.

The rumor also alleged that Huawei’s mobile phone business has adopted maintaining existing users as a core strategy. The measures that will be implemented in this regard are basically after-sale services such as replacing the battery, back cover, and even components such as the screen, motherboard, and camera on existing models at a lowered price. The company also plans to speed up the migration of models to HarmonyOS.

At the HarmonyOS 2 unveiling conference held on June 2, Huawei Consumer Business head Yu Chengdong unveiled the P50 series but disclosed that the release of the P50 series has been postponed for obvious reason. The company is yet to announce when the flagship will hit the market.

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(source)

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UPDATE: Huawei has debunked rumors that it is negotiating the sales of its premium series.  In a statement released to the Chinese media, the company hinted that it has no plans to sell its mobile phone business and that it will continue building high-end phones.

The original story is retained below;

Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd is reported to be in talks with investors to sell its high-end smartphone brands P and Mate, according to insider sources. If the move scales through all the hurdles and is consummated by both sides, then we could see Huawei ultimately exiting the high-end segment of the business.

Huawei is a powerhouse in the manufacturing of telecommunications equipment, in fact, the world’s biggest manufacturer of Telecom equipment. The talks between the company and a consortium of investment firms have been going on for months, and a decision could be reached anytime soon, according to the sources.

The move to sell off the brands was kick-started last September and may have progressed very well, although no valuation figures are available at this time. In a one-year period between Q3 2019 and Q3 2020, Shipments of Mate and P Series models grossed $39.7 billion.

It has to be pointed out however that Huawei hasn’t made a final decision to sell yet, and a no-deal scenario is still possible as the company seeks ways to mitigate US sanctions that negatively impacted the fortunes of the company. It is still trying to manufacture its own high-end Kirin chips which power its smartphones.

The potential sale of this arm of the company may suggest that there is little hope for a loosening of the sanctions and restrictions from the new Biden administration, as no drastic shift is expected.

A similar sale was done by Huawei last year when it’s honor brand was sold to a consortium of 30 dealers, for a reported 100 billion yuan ($15.5 billion).

The Honor sale was aimed at keeping the brand afloat in the face of sanctions. Huawei may have a similar objective in pursuing the sale of the mobile brands. The US insists that Huawei is a national security threat, which Huawei has repeatedly denied.

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(source)

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Huawei has two premium flagship smartphone lineups — P-series and Mate-series. While we have already seen P40 series smartphone getting launched recently, the next-generation Mate series phones will be launched in the second half of the year.

But with the advancement going on a rapid pace, Huawei is reportedly considering to make a strategic change and “resurrect” the Mate S product line. As per the report, the Chinese company is planning to launch a new Mate-series premium smartphone next month which will be different from the Mate 40 lineup.

While nothing much is known about the smartphone in question, it is said that the phone will be the successor of the Huawei Mate S. As said, the device is expected to get launched in China as soon as next month.

For the uninitiated, the Huawei Mate S flagship smartphone was launched in September 2015, featuring an all-metal body and top-of-the-line specifications at the time. As for its successor, the phone will reportedly come with several of the company’s own technology, but details about the same remains unknown.

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Similar to other premium devices from the company, we expect the upcoming smartphone to be powered by Huawei’s own Kirin chipset. It could be powered by a new chipset which falls somewhere between Kirin 990 5G and upcoming Kirin 1020. However, this is just a speculation and there’s no information available at this point in time.

Given that the Chinese company has Huawei Mate40 series flagship smartphone in the pipeline to launch later this year, it remains to be seen how the company positions the upcoming Mate device. As per the reports, the Mate 40 will be powered by Kirin 1020 SoC and FreeFrom Lens technology.

Although there are two major flagship lineups of Huawei with P-series and Mate-series, the company recently launched foldable smartphone lineup under the Mate branding, dubbed as Huawei Mate X and Mate Xs. Apart from the Mate40 series, the company is also set to launch another foldable smartphone this year which will be the successor of the Mate X, likely to be called Huawei Mate X2.

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(Source)

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Huawei announced its new EMUI 8.0 based on Android 8.0 Oreo during the launch of the Mate 10 series last month. As a result of the new Custom ROM, Huawei is set to upgrade older models to the new version and one of the models to get the upgrade is the P10. The Huawei P10 was the first flagship model that was launched at MWC earlier this year, along with the P10 Plus.

Huawei has now launched the Android Oreo-based EMUI 8 Closed Beta upgrade for the Huawei P10 and its sibling, the P10 Plus. Registration for the Closed Beta program for the P10 and P10 Plus will run from November 14 – November 16 and applicants would need to sign up using an account number and the serial number of their mobile phone.

This isn’t the first Closed Beta that Huawei would be launching, though, as the Mate 9 series, as well as the Honor V9, had earlier seen recruitment for EMUI 8 closed beta. With this development, we believe more models would get upgrade programs soon. However, a full upgrade package for the Stable ROM may not be available until early next year.

Read More: Huawei Is Skipping EMUI Version 6 And 7 To Introduce EMUI 8.0

It would be recalled that the Mate 10 series launched with a new Kirin 970 chipset which came with Artificial Intelligence features. The interface also offers artificial intelligence but due to hardware differences, some older models may not have this feature enabled on the new EMUI 8.0 ROM ut all other features of the new interface not dependent on specific hardware requirement would be available to users.

(source)

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Huawei released the Mate 8 flagship back in November, and the phone has managed to do well for the company so far. Recently, we spotted a new Huawei smartphone on the Chinese network certification website TENAA and from the overall design and specs, it looks like a variant of the Huawei Mate 8 flagship. So, what is new in this model? While TENAA fails to point out the difference between this version and the one announced last year, it is said that this updated model could come with an improved version of Force Touch.

Huawei was one of the first Android smartphone makers to announce and release a Force Touch enabled device in the market. However, when compared to Apple’s 3D Touch, the Force Touch on Mate S lacked many functions. But now, with this new Mate 8 model, it looks like the company is going to update the version of Force Touch and add many new features.

Design wise, this new Mate 8 version looks identical to the earlier released model. So, you get the same all metal body as well as a 6-inch 1080p display. The phone is quite compact as well, coming with an 8.2mm body. Inside, the device comes with an octa-core 2.3GHz processor which should most likely be the Kirin 950 chip. For memory, you have 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The phone supports dual 4G networks and comes with a 16MP camera with PDAF and CAF along with an 8MP front facing camera sensor. Finally, for battery, you have a 3900mAh capacity one inside. For software, it’s running Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

We are not quite sure under what name will Huawei release this device. Last year, if you remember, Huawei had unveiled the Mate S flagship with Force Touch in September and a couple of months later, i.e. in November, the company unveiled the Mate 8 flagship. We could see a similar launch strategy this year, with Huawei releasing this model as the Huawei Mate 8S (just a possibility) and then unveiling the Mate 9 flagship with improved Force Touch and much more powerful specs sometime late 2016.

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