Huawei slashes prices in fight for China's high-end smartphone market share

Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies has slashed prices for a range of high-end handsets in new efforts to boost sales amid cutthroat competition in the world's biggest smartphone market.

The company reduced the price of its top-of-the-line Pura 70 Ultra device, launched in April , to 8,999 yuan (US$1,233) for the 1 terabyte version - an 18 per cent discount from the original price of 10,999 yuan, Huawei's official online store Vmall showed. The 512 gigabyte version is being sold at a steeper markdown of 20 per cent.

The Mate X5, a foldable smartphone launched in September 2023, is being offered at 2,500 yuan less than its original starting price of 12,999 yuan, translating to a 19 per cent discount. The model had been China's top-selling foldable handset since its launch, according to data by research firm CINNO.

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Huawei already made rare price cuts of up to 1,000 yuan for the Pura 70 series in July. The latest discounts come after the company released in November the flagship Mate 70 series and the foldable Mate X6, as it gunned for a larger share of a market dominated by Apple and several Chinese rivals.

The trifold Mate XT is Huawei's latest foldable smartphone. Photo: Reuters alt=The trifold Mate XT is Huawei's latest foldable smartphone. Photo: Reuters>

The Shenzhen-based company's domestic shipments of premium-priced smartphones - handsets that cost more than US$600 - surged 34 per cent in the September quarter , according to consultancy Canalys. That gave Huawei a 33 per cent share of its home market, closing in on Apple, which continued to lead with a 52 per cent share.

However, the latest Mate 70 series faces subdued sales because of its weaker processors compared to competitors, according to analysts at research firm TechInsights. Total shipments of the Mate 70 series handsets are expected to exceed 10 million units throughout its life cycle , according to Counterpoint Research.

The industry was closely monitoring the Mate 70's release for insights into Huawei's progress in chip development. Last year, the US-blacklisted firm surprised the world by incorporating a 7-nanometre chip in its Mate 60 series smartphones.

The sales performance of Huawei's foldable handsets is also of interest to analysts, as the company remains the bestselling foldable smartphone vendor in China, accounting for around half of total domestic shipments, according to the latest data by Counterpoint.