On November 26, 2024, Huawei unveiled its Mate 70 series at an event in Shenzhen, marking the debut of its new operating system, HarmonyOS NEXT.
Huawei’s Resilience in the Market
Despite ongoing restrictions from the U.S. that limit Huawei’s access to advanced technology, the company has demonstrated significant growth, capturing market share from competitors like Apple. Chairman Howard Liang announced that Huawei’s revenue surpassed 860 billion yuan (approximately $118.27 billion) in 2024, reflecting a remarkable 22% increase compared to the previous year. This growth rate is the highest since 2016, when revenue surged by 32%.
Liang, speaking at a government conference, characterized Huawei’s consumer business as “returning to growth” and noted the rapid advancement of its automotive solutions division. He also reported that the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) segment—Huawei’s largest revenue contributor—remained stable.
Following a challenging period that began in 2019 due to U.S. sanctions, which restricted Huawei’s access to critical technologies including advanced 5G chips and Google’s Android operating system, the company faced a significant downturn. Revenue stagnated in 2020 and plummeted by nearly 29% in 2021. Although the consumer segment saw a year-on-year increase of 17% to 251.5 billion yuan in 2023, it was still less than half of its peak performance in 2020.
Market Dynamics
In terms of smartphone market dynamics, Huawei experienced a remarkable 37% increase in shipments within mainland China last year, moving from fourth to second place in market share. Meanwhile, Apple slipped to third place with a 17% decline in sales. The budget-conscious brand Vivo maintained its lead as the top smartphone vendor in 2024, according to Canalys data.
Huawei’s resurgence began with the launch of the Mate 60 Pro in 2023, which was praised for its impressive download speeds attributed to a newly developed semiconductor chip. Following this success, the Mate 70 series was introduced, featuring HarmonyOS NEXT, which represents Huawei’s first fully self-developed operating system.
