Huawei Unveils the P50, its New Flagship Handset – Qualcomm Remains Only US Supplier

In its latest announced smartphone model, Huawei switched to the HarmonyOS 2 system, as Google was earlier prohibited from licensing the Android system to the Chinese company. The US sanctions have impacted Huawei's new smartphone series in other aspects as well. 

In an announcement during its online event, Huawei unveiled that neither of the two new models – the P50 and P50 Pro – support 5G mobile internet. Yu Chengdong, the CEO of the Consumer Business Group, said during the event, "Huawei is the global 5G leader, but we have to go with 4G this time due to the four rounds of US restrictions over the past two years."

The P50 and P50 Pro are equipped with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 888 4G chipset and HiSilicon's Kirin 9000 4G chipset, respectively. Qualcomm (QCOM:NASDAQ), the American chip design company, became the only one to receive permission to sell chipsets to Huawei in November 2020. Huawei's representatives have stated that the model with HiSilicon's chip will be rolled out on August 12, while the Qualcomm-powered version will be sold at the end of 2021, indicating that Huawei might soon run out of its high-end Kirin chips produced by Taiwanese foundry TSMC.

As a P50 teardown shows, this time, Huawei has become even more tied to its domestic supply chain. The core suppliers list was revealed online before the official launch. From the display panel to the radio frequency IC devices, from the camera module to the battery, Huawei chose domestic suppliers, including BOE (000725:SZ), Lens Technology (300433:SZ), BYD (002594:SZ), Speed Wireless Technology (300322:SZ), Maxscend (300782:SZ), Fenghua Advanced Technology (000636:SZ), Goodix Technology (603160:SH), AAC (02018:HK) and Sunwoda (300207:SZ). After the announcement, lithium battery provider and EV maker BYD and the fingerprint sensor designer Goodix Technology's Shenzhen and Shanghai stocks rose in the morning trading session by 3.06% and 5.80%, respectively.