China's smartphone market has stumbled into a downturn as economic woes turn consumers cautious. At the same time, consumers are ditching Apple's new iPhone 15 and have embraced domestic brands.
Huawei Technologies Co. is one of those domestic brands that gained popularity with Chinese consumers last fall when it released its 'Made-in-China' Mate 60, which helped erode Apple's market dominance in high-end handsets.
Now, Huawei has announced, first published on its corporate WeChat account, that the company plans to release a new smartphone called the "Pura 70" to compete with iPhone 15 models.
On April 18, 2012, Huawei's first P series mobile phone was launched. Over the past twelve years, hundreds of millions of consumers have captured countless wonderful moments with P series mobile phones. With everyone's company and support, HUAWEI P series has been fully upgraded to HUAWEI Pura, starting again with a new attitude! Today, we launched the "HUAWEI Pura 70 Series Pioneer Plan". Pura 70 Ultra and Pura 70 Pro will go on sale at 10:08 Pioneer. Everyone is welcome to try it!
Here are the starting prices for the Pura lineup:
- Pura 70: 5,499 yuan
- Pura 70 Pro: 6,499 yuan
- Pura 70 Pro Plus: 7,999 yuan
- Pura 70 Ultra: 9,999 yuan
The iPhone 15 in China starts at around 5,999 yuan, while the iPhone 15 Pro Max starts at 9,999 yuan - yet a sign Huawei is directly challenging Apple.
According to Bloomberg, the Pura lineup has a domestic Kirin 9010 chipset. This comes after Chinese state media lauded the made-in-China Kirin 9000s inside the Mate 60 Pro in the fall that circumvented Biden's chip bans.
Huawei's resurgence in the world's largest smartphone market is a troubling sign as Apple's dominance wanes.
