In Shanghai, Huawei unveiled its P60 flagship series — phones that can only reach 4G speeds in a 5G world, a quiet testament to how American export controls have reshaped one of technology's most ambitious companies. Once commanding 42 percent of China's smartphone market, Huawei now engineers its own camera systems and operating systems not purely by choice, but by necessity. The launch is less a product announcement than a philosophical statement: that a company can be walled off from the tools of its own industry and still insist on building forward.
Huawei Launches P60 Flagship Without 5G as US Sanctions Persist
Building an ecosystem that does not require American permission
Mark
So Huawei is still making flagship phones despite the sanctions. What does that actually tell us about where the company stands?
Mimi
It tells us they're still trying to compete, but the constraints are real. No 5G, no Google services—these aren't minor features. They're central to what makes a modern smartphone work for most people.
Luke
Right, but we should be careful about the framing. Huawei launched phones; that's a fact. Whether they can actually sell them in meaningful numbers is a different question. The market share data shows they fell out of the top five by 2022. We don't know yet if the P60 changes that.
Mark
Why did Leica leave them for Xiaomi?
Mimi
The source doesn't say explicitly, but the timing matters. Leica moved its partnership away right as the sanctions were tightening. It's a signal that even premium partners were hedging their bets.
Luke
And that's worth noting—it's not just about chips and software. It's about ecosystem partners deciding the risk isn't worth it. That's harder to recover from than a technical problem.
Mark
What about Honor? That seems like a bright spot.
Mimi
It is. By selling Honor off in 2019, Huawei essentially gave it a clean slate. Honor grew 30 percent last year and holds 18 percent of the market. It's proof that the Huawei brand itself became toxic, not the phones.
Luke
Though we should note—Honor is a separate company now. Its success doesn't directly help Huawei's core business. They're competitors in the same market.
Mark
So what's Huawei's actual path forward here?
Mimi
They're betting on self-sufficiency. Harmony OS instead of Android, XMAGE instead of Leica, homegrown chips instead of buying from America. It's a long-term play.
Luke
A long-term play that assumes they can execute at the level their competitors do. That's unproven. And it assumes the Chinese market alone is enough to sustain them, because they're locked out of most other markets.
Il Polso
- Huawei's new P60 phones cannot access 5G — a technology the company helped create — because US sanctions have severed its access to the chips required to support it.
- Since 2019, successive rounds of American export controls have stripped Huawei of semiconductor suppliers, design software, and manufacturing partnerships, collapsing its China market share from 42% to outside the top five.
- The loss of its Leica camera partnership to rival Xiaomi forced Huawei to engineer its own XMAGE camera system — a symbol of both its remaining technical capability and the partnerships it can no longer hold.
- Huawei is now building an entire parallel ecosystem — Harmony OS replacing Android, XMAGE replacing Leica — attempting to operate without requiring access to any US-controlled technology.
- Its former budget brand Honor, sold off in 2019, has captured 18% of the Chinese market with 30% annual growth, underscoring how deeply the sanctions have hurt Huawei's core business by comparison.
In Shanghai, Huawei unveiled its P60 flagship series — phones that can only reach 4G speeds in a 5G world, a quiet testament to how American export controls have reshaped one of technology's most ambitious companies. Once commanding 42 percent of China's smartphone market, Huawei now engineers its own camera systems and operating systems not purely by choice, but by necessity. The launch is less a product announcement than a philosophical statement: that a company can be walled off from the tools of its own industry and still insist on building forward.
Huawei took the stage in Shanghai on Thursday to unveil its P60 smartphone series — a launch that said as much about survival as it did about innovation. The P60 starts at roughly $658, with a P60 Pro and a foldable Mate X3 rounding out the lineup. All of them run on 4G only, a constraint that is not a design decision but a consequence of years of American trade restrictions that have cut the company off from the advanced chips it would need to offer 5G.
Richard Yu, head of Huawei's consumer division, devoted much of the event to the company's new XMAGE camera system — a homegrown replacement for the Leica partnership that had long defined its flagship phones, until Leica moved that collaboration to Xiaomi last year. The new camera is a genuine engineering achievement, but it also marks what Huawei has had to let go of.
The broader picture is stark. In 2019, Huawei held 42 percent of China's smartphone market. By 2022, it had fallen out of the top five entirely. US export controls, tightened in successive rounds since 2019, have blocked the company from purchasing advanced semiconductors and from accessing the software tools that would allow it to design its own. Google, similarly restricted, cannot offer technical support or its suite of mobile services to new Huawei devices.
Huawei's response has been to build inward — its own operating system, its own camera technology, its own developer ecosystem. The spinoff of its budget brand Honor, sold to a dealer consortium in late 2019, has fared far better, claiming 18 percent of the Chinese market with 30 percent annual growth. But Huawei's core business has not recovered. The P60 launch is a signal that the company intends to keep building — the harder question is whether building alone is enough.
Huawei unveiled three new smartphones on Thursday in Shanghai, pressing forward with a strategy of self-reliance that has become its only option under years of American trade restrictions. The P60, starting at 4,488 yuan—roughly $658—marks the company's latest attempt to compete in a market it once dominated, though it carries a significant constraint: it runs on 4G networks only, not the faster 5G technology that Huawei itself helped pioneer.
Richard Yu, who leads Huawei's consumer business, spent nearly an hour at the Chinese-language event walking through the company's new XMAGE camera system, a homegrown alternative to the Leica partnership that defined Huawei's flagship phones until last year, when Leica shifted its collaboration to Xiaomi instead. The camera represents both innovation and necessity—a sign that Huawei is still capable of engineering sophisticated hardware, but also a reminder of what it has lost. The company also introduced the P60 Pro, priced from 6,988 yuan, and the foldable Mate X3, starting at 12,999 yuan.
The absence of 5G capability is not a design choice but a consequence of American policy. Since 2019, successive rounds of US export controls have systematically cut Huawei off from the chips it needs and the design tools required to engineer its own. The company cannot buy advanced semiconductors from American suppliers, and it cannot access the software and manufacturing partnerships that would allow it to build them independently. These restrictions have hollowed out what was once a dominant handset business. In 2019, Huawei controlled 42 percent of China's smartphone market. By 2022, according to data from the research firm Canalys, it had fallen out of the top five entirely.
The company's former budget brand, Honor, has fared better since Huawei sold it off in late 2019 to a consortium of more than thirty agents and dealers. Honor claimed 18 percent of the Chinese market last year and reported 30 percent annual growth, suggesting that the separation allowed it to escape the worst effects of the sanctions. But Huawei's core business has not recovered.
The new phones will run Huawei's Harmony operating system, another homegrown alternative born from necessity. Google, restricted by US sanctions, cannot provide technical support to new Huawei models or access to Google Mobile Services—the suite of developer tools and apps that most Android phones depend on. By building its own operating system and its own camera technology, Huawei is attempting to construct an ecosystem that does not require American permission to exist. Whether that ecosystem can compete with the established players remains the open question as the company continues to navigate a landscape where innovation alone may not be enough.
Citazioni salienti
Huawei spent nearly an hour presenting its self-developed XMAGE camera system at the Shanghai event— Event coverage
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