The Huawei sales space on the Cell International Congress in Barcelona, 2025.
Arjun Kharpal | CNBC
BARCELONA — Huawei is dipping its feet again into the global smartphone marketplace, however analysts warn the lingering results of U.S. sanctions is prone to abate the Chinese language corporate’s talent to compete with leaders Apple and Samsung.
Over the future few months, Huawei has introduced two key units outdoor of China. The primary in December was once the Mate X6, a foldable smartphone, adopted through the Mate XT, Huawei’s 3,499 euros ($3,660) trifold telephone.
Huawei was once searching to be on one?s feet out from the people of similar-looking smartphones on the Cell International Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, the arena’s largest telecoms business display. The Chinese language company had a immense be on one?s feet appearing off its wares, together with the Mate XT.
Those costly units and Huawei’s presence at a world tech display, underscore the tech immense’s focused manner, making an attempt to preserve its emblem symbol as an leading edge corporate pace promoting high-end smartphones.
“Huawei is still very cautious and conservative with what it believes it can achieve outside China with its smartphone business,” Runar Bjørhovde, an analyst at Canalys advised CNBC.
“Bringing Mate XT and X6 abroad is no sign that it will make an international comeback with its smartphone business in the next years. Both of these are priced exceptionally and is instead to maintain its desired brand perception of being a cutting-edge innovator with smartphones and still sell devices to its most wealthy super-fans.”
Signage presentations the Huawei Mate X6 at Huawei’s sales space on the Cell International Congress in Barcelona, 2025.
Past Huawei has scaled again one of the most glitzier facets of its attendance, its be on one?s feet extra very immense because it presentations off alternative portions of its trade, specifically its telecommunications apparatus which helped flip it into one of the vital global’s largest tech firms.
Within the client range, Huawei has maintained some presence outdoor of China with units equivalent to smartwatches however its smartphone trade extra very restricted. The company is the use of 2025’s MWC to blow their own horns the Mate XT, the primary of its sort software with a display that folds two times.
Then again, its good fortune in China is not going to be replicated with the most important problem being Huawei’s insufficiency of get entry to to Google’s Android instrument, analysts stated.
“I don’t think they will be able to return to international markets without the full Google services,” Francisco Jeronimo, vp for knowledge and analytics at World Knowledge Company, advised CNBC.
A Huawei Applied sciences Mate XT smartphone organized in Hong Kong on Sep. 24, 2024.
Lam Yik | Bloomberg | Getty Photographs
“They haven’t managed to grow market share in the international markets,” he stated.
Google’s Android working gadget is administered through 80% of the arena’s smartphones, in step with Counterpoint Analysis. Outdoor of China, Android software customers depend at the Google Play games Pack, which is Google’s app bind, in addition to the numerous apps from the Chrome browser to Gmail.
Past Huawei has its personal working gadget known as HarmonyOS, it nonetheless does no longer be capable of trade in Google apps, which nearly all of customers depend on.
“Expanding the smartphone business outside China will be a huge challenge,” Canalys’ Bjørhovde stated.
“Not only because Harmony barely has any active users outside China, limiting its user feedback and app availability, but also because it needs the right device portfolio, operations team, marketing resources, etc. This will take years to rebuild, even with strong success in other device categories.”
