Huawei anoounces P8 with 5.2" full HD display, 8MP front, 13MP back cameras, 64-bit Kirin 930 octa-core CPU, 2,600 mAh battery; priced around €475
Huawei P8 mixes all-metal body with octa-core chip for an affordable price — LONDON — Huawei has a new flagship smartphone to boast about and it's called the P8.
Context & Ripple Effects
In April 2015 Huawei put its own silicon at the center of a premium phone for the first time in this coverage arc: the P8 shipped an all-metal body, 5.2-inch full HD display and 64-bit Kirin 930 octa-core CPU at around €475 — flagship styling at a mid-premium price. Later that year the company pushed the same playbook further with the Mate 8, which jumped to a 6-inch display, 4000mAh battery and the newer Kirin 950 at $470.
By early 2017 the line had climbed fully upmarket: the P10 arrived at €649 with dual 20MP/12MP cameras and bigger batteries across both sizes. The throughline from the P8 onward is that each step up in price was carried by a new in-house Kirin chip rather than a purchased one.
First-order effects
- Buyers in the ~€475 tier immediately gain a metal-bodied flagship running Huawei's own 64-bit octa-core Kirin 930, making in-house silicon a selling point rather than a compromise.
Second-order effects
- Huawei's own portfolio absorbs the pressure: the Honor sub-brand extends the same recipe down-market, with the Honor 8 pairing a Kirin 950 and dual cameras at $399 a year later, so the P8's spec-per-euro formula competes against cheaper siblings as much as rivals.
Third-order effects
- Owning the Kirin design chain proved structurally decisive: after US restrictions cut Huawei off from advanced US chips, the company spent seven years rebuilding its chip business on logic-stacking workarounds, and teardowns of the Mate 70 Pro and Pura 80 Pro found 57% of components made in China.
The trend: Huawei's smartphone strategy since the 2015 P8 has been a steady climb upmarket on successive in-house Kirin chips, building the vertical integration that later let it weather US export curbs.