Chinese technology company Huawei launches the first phones with the latest operating system it developed in-house. The company is continuing its push for independence to break away from US technology due to US sanctions, news website CNBC reports.
Huawei returns to the top
The Mate 70 device is the successor to the Mate 60 series, which was launched in August last year. It marks Huawei’s return to the high-end smartphone market and to competition with US firm Apple after Huawei’s business was hit hard by restrictions on the export of advanced chip technology from the United States to China.
Huawei is launching the new device at a time when the United States is expected to announce new export restrictions that could put as many as 200 Chinese chip companies on a trade blacklist as early as this week and limit their access to U.S. suppliers, according to Reuters.
Huawei Mate 70: Revolutionary technology
Already, the Mate 60 device contained a semiconductor that many thought Huawei and China would find hard to produce because of the sanctions. Huawei was cut off from US company Google’s Android operating system in 2019, forcing the Chinese tech giant to develop its own software.
The device is “the most powerful Mate phone ever”, said Richard Yu, who heads the consumer and automotive division at the company. Prices for the Mate 70 will start at 5,499 yuan (over 18,000 won), Yu said at a presentation in his home city of Shenzhen that was live-streamed on the Internet and in company stores. By comparison, Apple’s base model iPhone 16 sells for 5,999 yuan in China, Reuters noted. Yu also said the Mate 70 is the first mainstream smartphone to include satellite paging, have an improved processor and run on its own HarmonyOS NEXT operating system. Together, this then boosts its performance by 40 percent compared to previous models.
Source: ČTK
