Huawei CEO confirms full-screen display on upcoming Mate 10, as company reports Q2 results, and says it is giving up on very low-end devices
Context & Ripple Effects
This announcement lands just before Huawei's strongest year yet: the company went on to report 153M smartphone sales in 2017 with net profit up 28.1% YoY to ~$7.3B [[a:928049]]. Pairing the Mate 10 full-screen confirmation with an explicit exit from very low-end devices signals that the flagship line, not budget volume, is now the growth engine.
The Q2 results give the pivot financial cover — and the subsequent record shows it held: Huawei hit 100M shipments by mid-July 2018 en route to a 200M target [[a:931689]], then reached 200M in 2019 while launching the ~$2,400 Mate X foldable [[a:947079]].
First-order effects
- Huawei is deliberately ceding the very low-end smartphone segment, concentrating its lineup around premium flagships like the full-screen Mate 10 announced alongside the Q2 numbers.
Second-order effects
- The premium mix becomes the basis for Huawei's volume ambitions — the 100M-units-by-July-18 milestone and 200M end-of-year target set a year later depend on higher-value devices carrying shipment growth.
Third-order effects
- If the upmarket pattern holds, it extends into new form factors and price points — the ~$2,400 Mate X foldable — and underwrites durable financial momentum, visible in the 2024 Q2 report of six straight quarters of revenue growth [[a:873912]].
The trend: Huawei is trading low-end volume for premium positioning, using flagship hardware like the Mate line to drive both shipment records and margin.