October surprise? Some believe Huawei will unveil Mate 50 line next month
For Huawei, it looked as though 2021 was going to be all screwed up. The photography-focused flagship P series, normally released in March or April, wasn't unveiled until July. This year, with the U.S. restrictions really taking a bite out of the company, Huawei was forced to use Snapdragon 888 chips that were modified to disable support for 5G connectivity.
That is because of a new U.S. export rule put into effect last year and designed to thwart Huawei specifically. Under the new rule, foundries using American technologies to produce chips cannot ship cutting-edge chips to Huawei, and what is more cutting-edge than 5G? As a result, once its inventories were depleted, Huawei couldn't even obtain its homegrown Kirin 9000 5G chip.
Is there still time for Huawei to release the Mate 50 line this year?
With all of the delays and issues and problems, it appeared that Huawei might have to cancel the Mate 50 series. The Huawei Mate line is made up of the manufacturer's most technologically advanced phones for a given year and is usually unveiled during the third or fourth quarter. With the release of the P50 and P50 Pro delayed by months, in June there was talk that the Mate 50 series would be canceled.
The Mate 50 Pro could borrow its rear camera design from the pictured P50 Pro
But according to MyDrivers (via GizChina), there is still hope that the Mate 50 series will see the light of day this year. Huawei is going to hold an event on October 21st and to promote it, the company disseminated what you might call a promo with the date of the event and a picture showing the side view of a phone. Some have said that the event will introduce the global version of the P50 line or the Huawei nova 9.
There are some who believe that Huawei will use the event to introduce the Mate 50 line. If the photo of the phone on the promo is legit, the handset pictured is not a P50 model. The lowest point of the camera bump is above the volume rocker which eliminates the P50 series. It still might be the nova 9. But at least the event is giving Huawei fans hope that new mate handsets are coming this year.
If the phone being introduced next month is not the Mate 50 flagship line, it is possible that these handsets become official next year. Whenever the Mate 50 and Mate 50 Pro launch, they could come equipped with support for the Beidou satellite system. This feature will allow users to send and receive SMS messages using the satellite even when there is no cellular signal available.
We'd expect the camera system to look similar to the one on the P50 line and sport the 4G only Snapdragon 888 chipset. Huawei's fall in China has been cited as the reason why pre-orders for the iPhone 13 series on China's JD.com official Apple Store rose 33% to over two million units when reservations over the platform opened last Thursday.
Huawei is expected to be the seventh-largest global phone manufacturer this year
By all rights, Huawei should be the top smartphone manufacturer in the world. But having been given the designation "national security threat," the U.S. went after Huawei by first putting the company on the entity list in 2019. That listing means that the company cannot access its U.S. supply chain without obtaining a license. Considering that the firm spent $11 billion on U.S. parts in 2018, it seems that U.S. tech firms were collateral damage.
Will Huawei unveil the Mate 50 line next month?
But being placed on the entity list was not enough for the U.S. If there is one thing that China is not self-sufficient in, it is manufacturing chips. So the aforementioned new export rule was put in place and has been a real thorn in Huawei's side
Huawei sold its Honor sub-brand last year for an estimated $15 billion so that the brand could be independent of Huawei and not be forced to follow the U.S. restrictions. So this year, instead of finishing on top of the global smartphone league tables, Huawei is expected to finish seventh with Honor right behind it.
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