While I have never personally used a Huawei device, unless you count the Honor Magic 2 I had awhile back, but I know that they are solid devices. Top of the line cameras, top of the line performance, top of the line design, and more. Huawei's devices could always go blow for blow with Samsung and Apple in most cases.
But after some unfortunate events, they are banned from the United States and from using United States technology. All of this made me come to the conclusion that I wish the Huawei ban wasn’t real.
United States Availability
As I mentioned earlier, Huawei devices can’t be sold here in the US. However, even before the ban, the company never entered the US market. The smartphone market here is extremely competitive. We as a country have no problem buying a $1000+ device. This makes the market here very attractive and lucrative, but again very competitive.
However, back in the day, I always hoped the company would’ve dipped their toes into the US market. OnePlus did. And after doing so, OnePlus devices have been sold here for years now. You can get one from Best Buy or Amazon, and it has the correct bans to work on carriers in the country.
Competition Is A Good Thing
Everyone knows that competition is a good thing. Because in the end we consumers win as companies’ fight for our dollar. Devices become better to outclass their competitors. And that is what Huawei always provided. Good competition.
For years Huawei sat atop of every best of list alongside Apple, Samsung, Google, etc. The company was able to keep the other companies on their toes. I’m not taking anything away from Xiaomi, OnePlus, or any other manufacturer.
Crushed Competition
The ban and being put on the entity list made it hard for Huawei to compete at the top of the smartphone world. The company continued to make devices and sold them in their homeland. However, prior to the ban, Huawei also used to sell devices in the Europe.
Despite this though, Huawei recently released a device that has the US government worried and scratching their heads. You see, with the ban, it should’ve been near impossible for Huawei to create a device with 5G technology inside of it. But that’s exactly what the company did.
That new device is the Huawei Mate Pro 60, and that device is powered by the Kirin 9000s chip. That chip is built on a 7 nm process, which is out of date compared to the 3 nm chips in the newest iPhones. However, the Kirin 9000s also has the aforementioned 5G capabilities.
This is a huge breakthrough because the ban put in place by the US keeps Huawei from using any US technology. That includes from companies that use US tech to create the chips Huawei uses. Now, the company has its own homegrown chip that can provide a modern internet browsing experience. Politics and what not aside, this is a major turn of events.
The Falling Apple
As a matter of fact, this is such a major turn of events that it has helped Huawei grow exponentially after the device was released. Huawei used to be the top smartphone brand in China until the bans were put in place. The ban effectively capped how much advancement Huawei’s devices could make by forcing them to use older technology.
This boom in growth from the release of the Mate 60 Pro has brought Huawei back to life. The company is now within striking distance of the top 5 manufacturers in China, according to CNBC.
While Apple is immensely popular worldwide, including in China, this new device is causing Apple some trouble. Whereas Huawei’s growth has skyrocketed, Apple has seen a double-digit market share loss.
On the other hand, Huawei’s has seen 37% growth year-on-year. And that growth has netted the company 12.9% of the market share. It only had 9.1% last year. Without dragging this on too long, as you can see, Huawei’s new Mate 60 Pro has directly caused a seismic shift.
Competition Returns
With the explanation of why the Mate 60 Pro is important out of the way, we can get back to why Huawei being banned hurts consumers. The Mate 60 Pro proves that Huawei, and to an extent China, doesn’t need the US to grow its technology.
This SHOULD put Apple on high alert. And to an extent Google and Samsung. You see, in my opinion, Apple doesn’t feel the need to directly compete with any other phone manufacturers. There is only one iPhone. However, the more other manufacturers continue to innovate, the more pressure gets put on Apple to keep up. Or they risk becoming embarrassingly obsolete.
The saying iron sharpens iron always stood out to me. In this case, Huawei is the iron which sharpens the other big manufacturers. Even before the new Mate 60 Pro was released and caused panic, Apple, Samsung, Google, etc. were competing with the Chinese manufacturer to stand out as the de facto best smartphone manufacturer.
Without competition, we get things like 25W fast charging, which isn’t fast. Phones in China are charging at 70W+ an hour. But those devices do not have the same mass appeal as Huawei. If they did, then the US would’ve banned them as well.
This is all just my opinion, of course. And I’m just rambling on. But I can say I truly believe that the ban on Huawei diminished competition. When companies have to compete with each other to be the best, we consumers win.
What do you guys think? Let me know!
