Huawei Technologies unveiled its Mate 90 smartphone series on Thursday, introducing an in-house operating system and redesigned chip architecture to sustain handset performance despite ongoing United States export curbs. Speaking ahead of the launch, Huawei consumer business chief Richard Yu confirmed that the company continues to manage severe domestic capacity constraints for advanced semiconductors.
Hardware Performance and the Kirin 9050 Pro Chipset
The Mate 90 lineup succeeds the Mate 80 series launched in November 2025. Premium models, including the Mate 90 Pro Max, run on the Kirin 9050 Pro, a system-on-chip manufactured using a technique Huawei calls “LogicFolding.” This proprietary method restructures internal chip wiring in three dimensions rather than a conventional flat, two-dimensional layout. The approach delivers denser and faster processing performance, though it demands more silicon wafers to produce.
Huawei reported that its top-end Mate 90 models achieve a 31% increase in overall performance compared to the previous flagship generation. The Mate 90 Pro Max, featuring 16 GB of memory and 512 GB of storage, is priced at 9,999 yuan ($1,491), marking a 2,000 yuan increase over its predecessor’s launch price. Standard and Pro models start at 5,999 yuan and 6,999 yuan, respectively. Inside the software layer, the phones operate on Huawei’s homegrown, Android-free HarmonyOS 7, which supports over 450,000 apps and services.
Supply Constraints and Domestic Foundry Realities
Advanced semiconductor manufacturing in China remains heavily restricted by geopolitical trade rules. Richard Yu noted that advanced semiconductor capacity in China remains very limited, noting that Huawei’s Ascend AI chips draw on that exact same constrained manufacturing pool. According to Yu, smartphone chip capacity remains tight even as rising retail prices have cooled overall shipment volumes.
Domestic chip production still relies on deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines. While extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology remains valuable, Chinese manufacturers are still working toward its adoption. Although Huawei did not disclose its foundry partner for the Kirin 9050 Pro, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) is widely believed to produce the Kirin chips used across the Mate series as well as Huawei’s Ascend AI processors.
Eric Xu, Huawei’s rotating chairman, noted at a media event in Shanghai that supply of the company’s Ascend 950 AI chips could not meet domestic demand due to these identical capacity limits. Yu added that Huawei intends to utilize chips built with the LogicFolding technique across more future smartphone models.
Rising Component Costs and Market Dynamics
Chinese smartphone manufacturers face mounting pressure from rising memory and component costs, prompting widespread price increases and a strategic shift toward premium device shipments. Yu stated that soaring memory prices added an average of $200 to the production cost of each handset, directly squeezing profit margins. Huawei has increased device prices, though at a slower pace than cost increases dictate.
Market data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) shows that China’s domestic smartphone shipments fell 7% year-on-year between January and August. Over that same period, Huawei’s domestic shipments rose 13%. Across the broader Chinese market, the average selling price for smartphones climbed 11.3% year-on-year in the second quarter to $543, while the average price of Huawei smartphones declined 14.7% to $628.
Foldable Smartphone Competition in China
The launch arrives as competition intensifies in the foldable phone sector, a market long dominated by Samsung Electronics and Chinese rivals, including Huawei. Apple announced its first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, marking a major entry into the category.
Richard Yu welcomed Apple’s entrance into the foldable segment, noting that Huawei currently holds roughly a 75% share of China’s foldable phone market. Sales of Huawei’s Pura X Max foldable phone surged 76% week-on-week between September 10 and 13, immediately following the iPhone Duo announcement. Shipments of the Pura X Max have topped 1.2 million units in China since its April release. Counterpoint Research projects Apple will ship 6 million iPhone Duo units globally in 2026, with China accounting for nearly a quarter of that total.
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