Huawei to double smartphone shipments to 70m next year

Huawei is reportedly planning to increase the shipment of its smartphone sales next year. The company is to ship between 60 million and 70 million phones in 2024, two industry executives told Nikkei Asia, doubling shipments compared with this year and last.

The company has also been building up its inventory of lenses, cameras, print circuit boards and other parts since earlier this year to meet that goal, multiple supply chain managers and analysts said.

“A production line with international tools that are able to develop and produce 7-nanometer chips has been in place as early as 2018 or 2019,” one former employee of American equipment maker Applied Materials said, referring to SMIC’s facility. “This equipment setup bought a meaningful buffer time to alleviate American restrictions and other export controls from Japan and the Netherlands.”

“Huawei is aiming high in the next two years, and we expect them to move upward on the back of domestic demand cheering on their hometown hero,” Bryan Ma, vice president of device research at IDC, told Nikkei Asia. Ma said Huawei is likely to take some market share from Apple in China’s premium phone segment. But political tensions could throw a wrench in its plans if the company suddenly cannot secure enough components, Ma added.

Huawei’s smartphone business was hit hard by the U.S. crackdown. Shipments went from a peak of 240.6 million units in 2019, when it ranked second in the world, to just 30.5 million units last year, putting it in 10th place, according to market research company IDC.