Huawei launches flagship Mate 40 series carrying Kirin 9000 chipset. Photo:VCG

Huawei’s newly launched Mate 40 phones for pre-order sold out on Chinese e-commerce platform JD.com in 28 seconds after the sales started on Friday, beating the 30 seconds it took for Apple’s iPhone 12. This shows that Huawei is still capable of generating demand in the high-end mobile phone sector despite the US crackdown.

On Friday, pre-orders for Huawei’s flagship Mate 40 phones started on Huawei’s online market place and e-commerce platforms.

Data from Alibaba-backed Tmall showed that nearly 5 million consumers were browsing the phone in Huawei’s flagship store on Tmall after the launch event on Thursday night. Within seven days prior to the launch event, the number of searches of key words such as Huawei Mate 40 on Tmall exceeded 1 million, according to the platform.

Although Huawei hasn’t released the prices for the latest phone series, a lot of consumers chose to pay the 100 yuan ($15) pre-booking fee. 
Data from JD.com showed that it took only 28 seconds to sell out the Huawei Mate 40 phones after pre-orders started, while it took 30 seconds for Apple’s iPhone 12.

On Friday afternoon, JD’s pre-order system for the Huawei Mate 40 showed that stock was soon used up. On Tmall, there is a purchase limit and consumers need to place orders at different times.

The sales reflect consumers’ enthusiasm for the Chinese tech giant’s flagship model, as it is likely to be the last one equipped with Huawei’s proprietary Kirin chips.

Huawei’s Mate 40 phones are more powerful than Apple’s iPhone 12 series, as Huawei has rolled out its third-generation 5G phones while Apple just released its first generation, Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Information Consumption Alliance, a telecom industry association, told the Global Times on Friday.

“Huawei tries to take control of sales of the Mate 40 because of limited chip supply, while Apple attempts to dominate prices of the iPhone 12 series so as to maintain its place in the high-end phone sector,” Xiang said.

Xiang said the long-term prospects for Huawei’s high-end smartphone business are uncertain, noting that “its business may remain unaffected since foreign chip manufacturers are seeking US approval to continue chip sales to Huawei.”

Apple launched its new iPhone 12 last week. The US tech firm sold over 150,000 iPhone 12s in China during three days of preorders, according to figures from Chinese e-commerce platforms and Apple’s authorized distributors.

According to IDC, Huawei and Apple took a combined 88.1 percent of the high-end mobile phone market in China in the first half of this year. In that segment, Huawei’s share was 44.1 percent, edging out Apple for first place with a slight advantage of 0.1 percentage points.