Pura 70 sold out, Huawei wants to take back everything Apple took away

Author | Zeng Guang

Editor | Li Yuan

Operation | Liu Shan

After waiting for more than half a month, with the eager anticipation of all parties, Huawei’s Pura 70 series chose to “copy” the release strategy of last year’s Mate 60 and went on sale directly.

On April 15, after Huawei announced that the P series would be upgraded to the "Pura" series, the market expected that Huawei's new P series mobile phones would be unveiled soon. In the past three days, various Huawei terminal distribution outlets have continued to report that users are actively participating in "blind ordering".

On the morning of April 18, Huawei Mall launched Huawei Pura 70 Ultra and Huawei Pura 70 Pro at 10:08. The Pura model roughly continues the price system of the P60, and is divided into four models: Huawei Pura70, starting at 5,499 yuan, Pura70 Pro starting at 6,499 yuan, Pura70 Pro+ starting at 7,999 yuan, and Pura 70 Ultra, starting at 5,499 yuan. 9999 yuan - Next, Pura 70 standard version and Pura 70 Pro+ will be on sale on April 22.

After the new phone went online, "Shijie" placed an order immediately, but the two phones, Pura 70 Ultra and Pura 70 Pro, were sold out within one minute. At the same time, a Huawei dealer told "City Circle" that her store received part of the stock in advance on April 17. But within just one hour after going on sale, only the Ultra version was left in small quantities.

At the Huawei Vientiane World flagship store in Shenzhen, rush-buying users lined up in front of the Huawei store early. A user who participated in the on-site rush purchase told "City Circle" that there were so many people at the scene that he still had to queue up to get a number after entering the store. But compared to last year’s Huawei Mate 60, the stock this time is obviously more sufficient. Shortly after entering the store, he successfully purchased a Huawei Pura 70 Pro and received the new phone on site.

▲Photo provided by interviewee

Since April, questions about when “Huawei P70” will be released have been on Weibo’s hot searches several times. According to the practice of previous years, as the most important flagship phone in the first half of the year, Huawei P series models are usually released in March.

Regarding the reason for the postponement of the release of Huawei Pura 70 this year, an industry insider told "City Circle" that on the one hand, it is to allow a longer sales cycle for Huawei's high-end small folding machine Pocket 2 released not long ago - P series and Pocket The series are mainly targeted at women. On the other hand, it is also related to Huawei's efforts to increase production capacity and increase stocking-after all, after the Huawei Mate60 series was released last year, it was out of stock for a long time.

However, according to Jiemian News, dealers in Guangdong said that the first order volume of the Pura 70 series is much larger than that of the Mate 60 series.

Although Pura 70 has been belatedly arrived, its official name change also shows that Huawei’s internal expectations for the new machine are high. Industry insiders said that Pura 70 is considered to be Huawei's trump card to regain its market position from the high-end market. After the Huawei Mate 60 series and Mate X5 series folding screens were launched last year, Huawei's shipments in the high-end market have skyrocketed.

Industry insiders familiar with the mobile phone industry revealed to "City Circle" that industry forecasts: Huawei's global mobile phone shipments will reach about 60 million units in 2024, and production capacity coverage will be achieved simultaneously. This number not only means that Huawei mobile phones will regain the lost share from Apple, but will also give Huawei a high probability of returning to the top market share of Chinese smartphones.

The market has been waiting for Huawei Pura 70 for a long time.

On April 11, Huawei launched a "Hongmeng Ecological Spring Communication Meeting". The P70 mobile phone that was originally scheduled to be unveiled at the conference was nowhere to be seen, and the focus was reserved for cars, PCs and other products. But for more than a month, the topic of P series mobile phones has dominated the hot searches many times. Especially last year, the Huawei Mate60 series was sold before it was released, which also caused the industry to speculate that this time the Huawei P70 will suddenly hit the shelves again.

It is worth noting that the Huawei Mate 60 series was released at the end of August last year. Industry insiders have previously told the "market" that Huawei P70 will most likely be launched in April even if it is delayed. "If the delay is too long, it may disrupt the product rhythm of the Mate70 series in the second half of the year."

With the experience of Mate 60 being directly put on the shelves, many users and "scalpers" have stopped at Huawei's official mall in advance to prevent the P70 from suddenly being put on the shelves and missing the first round of buying opportunities.

After the official launch of the phone on April 18, a user told "City Circle" that he had been waiting at the official mall since the morning and failed to grab the phone. According to multiple users, many Huawei official flagship stores were crowded with a large number of users in the morning. A Huawei dealer told the media: Pura 70 Pro currently has a price premium of about 500 yuan.

As Pura 70 officially unveiled its true face, its relevant highlights and parameters were quickly exposed by the first batch of consumers who got the new phone.

As Huawei's flagship product, the P series has a history of 12 years and has always been known for its imaging performance. A few days ago, Huawei released a warm-up video for its P series mobile phones on its official Weibo account, revealing that the Huawei Pura 70 will be equipped with a super-concentrating imaging system, and the Pura 70 Ultra will use a super-concentrating telescopic main camera. As a highlight, Huawei said that the lens can be freely retracted, can be retracted and retracted 300,000 times without worry, and is 2 meters IP68 dustproof and waterproof.

Someone from Huawei's mobile phone supply chain told the media: Pura cameras have undergone major technical upgrades. Tianfeng International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo revealed: Because the Pura 70 Ultra’s wave-plastic hybrid lens uses molded glass, the cost will be 4-5 times that of a 7P lens (a high-end mobile phone lens, which is used in the iPhone 13).

Consumers who took a look at the new phone also discovered that the Pura 70 is equipped with the new Hongmeng 4.2 system. In addition, Huawei has not missed the fast train of AI. The Pura 70 is equipped with a large Pangu model, and the entire system supports new functions such as AI air-to-air operation, AI elimination, and AI cloud enhancement.

Since the launch of Mate 60, 5G communication has been an important highlight of Huawei’s flagship machine. According to market news, the entire Pura 70 series is equipped with Kirin chips, has 5G capabilities, and supports satellite communications. This also means that Huawei’s 5G communications have announced its return in the entire series of high-end phones.

Judging from the enthusiastic feedback from the market, Huawei Pura 70 should continue the craze when Mate 60 was launched.

▲On April 18, the Pura70 mobile phone attracted customers to experience in the Huawei flagship store on Nanjing Road, Shanghai

Considering that since the release of the Huawei Mate60 series last year, Huawei has returned to the top five in the Chinese smartphone market. According to media reports, in the first two weeks of 2024, Huawei won the first place in the Chinese mobile phone market. Next, the launch of Huawei Pura70 will further pin Huawei's hope of regaining the high-end market.

According to Canalys data, China's smartphone shipments in 2023 will be 273 million units, of which Apple, which ranks first in the market, will ship 51.8 million units.

According to industry insiders familiar with the mobile phone industry, the industry predicts that Huawei's global mobile phone shipments will reach about 60 million units in 2024, and production capacity coverage will be achieved simultaneously. This year, people can start to expect Huawei to surpass Apple.

The launch of Pura 70 will contribute an important part of the increase. Ming-Chi Kuo predicts that Huawei’s Pura 70 series shipments are expected to increase significantly to 10 million-15 million units in 2024. For comparison, the P60 series launched by Huawei in 2023 will sell 4-5 million units.

Combined with the fact that Huawei will also release the new generation Mate 70 series in the second half of the year, if the shipment target is successfully achieved, Huawei is likely to return to the top spot in the market this year.

Although Huawei has been "cheating" since the launch of Mate 60 in the second half of last year, considering the current interlocking situation in the mobile phone market, Huawei's leading advantage is also hard-won.

Entering 2024, although the global mobile phone market is ushering in further recovery momentum, competition among major manufacturers has become more intense. Canalys analyst Zhu Jiatao told "City Circle" that the global market is predicted to achieve 3% to 4% growth this year, and the domestic market is also expected to increase slightly year-on-year.

To some extent, Apple's lack of innovation has given other companies more hope of catching up. "Now the shares of the top five manufacturers are all very close, and basically no one is really far behind. Apple's global shipments this year have dropped significantly month-on-month and year-on-year, with declines in major markets such as China, North America, and Europe."

Zhu Jiatao said that the reason for Apple's sharp decline in the first quarter of this year is partly related to the increase in inventory in the fourth quarter of last year. The market competition is becoming more and more fierce. In addition to Huawei's return, other manufacturers are also using differentiated products such as folding screens to compete with Apple's price range.

In order to quickly regain the market that was eroded by Apple, Huawei's offensive in the field of high-end mobile phones can be described as step by step and vigorous advancement.

Although last year, due to the well-known impact of core technology production capacity, Huawei was unable to achieve liberalization of supply in the Mate 60 series. However, this situation has improved recently. Data shows: As of February this year, the combined sales of Huawei Mate60 series standard version and Pro models have exceeded 17 million units - of which Huawei Mate60 Pro has more than 12 million activations for a single model. In addition, sales of the higher-end Mate X5 folding screen have also reached 4 million units.

Recently, the market research organization BCI released the number of mobile phone activations in China in the first quarter of 2024. It showed that Huawei’s activations increased by 81% year-on-year to 10.584 million units, accounting for 15.5%, ranking third and surpassing Apple, second only to vivo (including iQOO). ) and glory. As Huawei's biggest rival in the high-end market, Apple's activation volume dropped 20% year-on-year to 10.569 million units in the quarter.

In addition, Huawei also uses high-end folding screens to create a niche and more profitable market segment in addition to candy bars. According to market statistics, Huawei Mate X5, which currently sells 4 million units, has a starting price of 12,999 yuan. The Huawei Pocket 2 small foldable model released not long ago starts at 7,499 yuan, and the artistic customized version starts at 9,999 yuan.

In March this year, according to data from DSCC, a well-known display supply chain research organization, thanks to the excellent performance of Huawei Mate X5 and Huawei Pocket 2, Huawei surpassed Samsung in the first quarter of 2024 and became the first in the global folding screen market share; Shipments increased by 105% compared to the same period last year, and the market share exceeded 40% - this is also the first time that Huawei's folding screen market share has surpassed Samsung's.

Driven by the simultaneous sales of multiple models, Huawei's terminal revenue has surged. Not long ago, Huawei released its 2023 annual report. The report shows that in 2023, Huawei's terminal business sales revenue will be 251.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.3%, ushering in the first positive growth in the past three years.

Next, with the launch of Huawei Pura 70 and the iteration of Huawei Mate70 series in the second half of the year, Huawei is bound to accelerate its recovery of lost ground in the high-end market.