Huawei smartphone chips no longer top secret as stores have green light to tell customers

Huawei Technologies’ distributors have started giving customers details of the processor used inside the company’s flagship smartphones, even though the US-sanctioned tech giant remains mum on the subject.

Staff at Huawei stores in Beijing now inform consumers that the chipset in the company’s flagship Mate 60 series is the HiSilicon Kirin 9000s, an in-house design, even though the information is not displayed publicly or anywhere on the smartphone.

Huawei has remained tight-lipped over its 5G chip, which surprised the market when it was launched in August 2023 because it was not supposed to be possible amid US sanctions. A third-party teardown analysis found that the 7-nanometre chip was the Kirin 9000s, even though Huawei has never officially confirmed that information.

The breakthrough fanned nationalist pride in China and helped Huawei regain its market relevance in the country’s huge smartphone market. At the same time, supply of the advanced chip remains tight given that it cannot be fabricated by overseas wafer foundries.

People walk past a Huawei store advertising the Mate 60 series smartphone at a shopping mall in Beijing, August 30, 2023. Photo: Reuters

Employees in Huawei’s Beijing outlets said some stores still do not have sufficient stock of the Mate 60 series, a sign that the supply-chain woes continue even as demand for the phones has ebbed from the initial launch in August last year.

Since the launch of its Mate 60 series smartphones last year, Huawei’s progress in semiconductors has been closely watched. The company’s more recent Pura 70 series runs on chips made from the same 7-nm process as the Mate 60 chip, according to teardown reports.

Despite its ambitions, Huawei has rarely spoken publicly about its efforts to free itself from the shackles of US sanctions aimed at stemming China’s technological advancement in semiconductors and artificial intelligence.

Washington imposed the sanctions over fears that US-origin technology may fall into the hands of the Chinese military, posing a threat to US national security.

Analysts expect that Huawei’s return will continue to disrupt the equilibrium in China’s smartphone market this year, although supply-chain bottlenecks from intensified US sanctions could impede its growth.

Huawei is expected to ship over 50 million handsets in China this year, reclaiming top spot in its home market with a 19 per cent market share, up from 12 per cent in 2023, according to TechInsights.

Huawei’s Mate 60 and its latest Pura 70 flagship are both capable of 5G connectivity. A previous TechInsights analysis found that the HiSilicon 9000s and Kirin 9010 chips powering the Pura phones, which were designed by Huawei’s fabless semiconductor subsidiary, were produced by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, China’s largest chip manufacturer, which also manufactured the Mate 60 chips.

Huawei is also facing a juggling act in terms of allocating chip production at SMIC, as its Ascend computer chips have become the top local alternative after US chip giant Nvidia faced tighter restrictions exporting its higher-performance graphics processor units to China-based customers.

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