Huawei Shifts Focus to Homegrown Chip Smartphones Amid Market Slowdown
- Huawei launches Mate 90 series using its own “LogicFolding” chip on China’s National Day.
- Executive Richard Yu aims to regain overseas market share lost due to U.S. restrictions.
- Despite expansion plans, Huawei’s smartphone sales outside China drastically drop to several million annually.
BEIJING — In response to a slowdown in both the smartphone and automotive markets, Huawei’s consumer business is prioritizing the release of smartphones equipped with domestically manufactured chips. The Mate 90 series, launched on October 1, features Huawei’s first self-produced chip, the “LogicFolding,” coinciding with China’s National Day public holiday.
Huawei Executive Director Richard Yu indicated that regaining the company’s overseas market share is a significant goal following U.S. restrictions imposed in 2019, which critically impacted their position in the global market. At its peak, Huawei shipped over 240 million smartphones globally and aimed for 300 million units that year. Now, according to Yu, annual sales outside of China have dwindled to just a few million units.
Looking forward, Yu expressed ambitions to broaden the reach of Huawei’s HarmonyOS operating system internationally within the next one to three years. Additionally, he hopes that advancements in China’s chip manufacturing capabilities will eventually facilitate overseas sales of devices featuring Huawei’s proprietary technology.
The media roundtable preceding the Mate 90 series launch marked Yu’s first engagement with foreign journalists since 2019, a year that not only saw Huawei cut off from Google’s Android operating systems but also lost access to TSMC-manufactured semiconductors.
In the wake of these sanctions, Huawei’s consumer business revenue, once the largest segment of the company, fell to approximately $34 billion in 2021 from 2020. However, it has since rebounded to around $51 billion in 2025, constituting about 39% of total revenue, according to company reports.
Huawei’s Entry into the Electric Vehicle Market
Alongside its efforts in mobile technology, Huawei has ventured into the electric vehicle (EV) sector by collaborating with multiple Chinese car manufacturers. The company reported generating at least $6.7 billion in revenue from its EV business in 2025. Unlike other manufacturers, Huawei focuses on providing software interfaces and driver-assist technologies rather than producing vehicles.
The overall automotive market in China is facing significant challenges, predicted to experience its worst year since 2021, with sales plummeting over 20% in the initial three quarters of the year. New energy vehicles, encompassing both battery electric and hybrid models, have seen a sales decline of 13% during the same period.
In September, deliveries of Huawei-powered vehicles decreased for the third consecutive month, reflecting a 29% drop year-over-year. This stands in stark contrast to rapid sales growth observed by competitors like BYD, which reported monthly sales surpassing 400,000 units, and Leapmotor, which consistently exceeded 100,000 monthly deliveries since July.
According to publicly available data from Huawei’s Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance (HIMA), the company delivered under 37,500 vehicles in September, far fewer than the total of more than 1.56 million units sold since the launch of its first Huawei-powered vehicle in late 2021. Furthermore, Seres Group, which develops the Aito EV line featuring Huawei technology, has seen its shares plunge more than 60% this year.
October 1 marked the announcement of a renewed five-year partnership agreement between Huawei and Seres, aimed at jointly establishing an Aito business team, with markets in mainland China set to reopen following the closure on October 1.
News Courtesy of CNBC
