Wired
Due to well-known reasons, Huawei’s mobile phones have been extremely difficult in the past two years.
Due to severe supply chain difficulties, many products could not be produced, resulting in severe stock-outs. Huawei’s high-end Mate series products, which have been released for ten consecutive years, have been forced to stop, and the launch of the previous generation of the Mate 40 series will date back to December 2020.
In the two years since Huawei left the center of the “stage”, domestic mobile phone brands have fallen into innovation difficulties. So far, no mobile phone brand has shown the same innovative strength as Huawei Mate. Before September 6, 2022, consumers have never stopped calling for the Huawei Mate 50 series.
Until Yu Chengdong shouted “Only Mate can surpass Mate” at the Mate 50 series press conference, everyone was excited. Of course, this is not a deliberate atmosphere. But this moment, everyone has really waited too long.
In the domestic mobile phone market in the past three to five years, the Mate series is quite a bit like Mount Everest “seeing all the mountains and small things” compared to the domestic high-end flagship mobile phones. Two years after the public, the Huawei Mate 50 series once again ushered in the dawn at the ten-year milestone, returning to the track, re-emerging, and re-climbing to the pinnacle of the flagship. The meaning behind it is far more than just a simple mobile phone release. It is of great significance for the benchmark demonstration of China’s mobile phone industry and the reshaping of the high-end experience of domestic flagship phones.
Recently, CCTV’s brand power documentary reviewed the ten-year struggle of Huawei’s Mate series of mobile phones, and revealed the unknown story behind the birth of Huawei’s Mate 50 series under such a difficult environment. In this way, we can understand why only Mate can surpass Mate.
Ten Years of Mate: “Change and Unchanging” of Huawei Mate Series
Yu Chengdong once said that over the past ten years, the Mate series has always adhered to the ultimate, high-end, and innovative. These ten years have been the ten years of continuous development and accumulation of Huawei’s innovative technologies, and it is also the ten years for Huawei’s mobile phone brand to move towards high-end roads. This statement is not false.
If we look back at the successful history of Huawei mobile phones in the high-end mobile phone market, we will actually find that the success of the Mate series is a firm and persistent technological long march. Market leadership history.
In 2013, the first Huawei Mate (Ascend Mate) series mobile phone was unveiled. This is the industry’s first mobile phone with a 6.1-inch large screen and a large 4100mAh battery. It is called a “pocket theater”. At that time, Huawei was firmly confident that it would be the greatest product in the world, the best mobile phone, and the most high-end brand.
In 2014, Mate7 was released, which created a “sales miracle” that was insurmountable in the mobile phone industry at that time, and thus opened the jazz life. Mate 7 is the world’s first one-touch fingerprint unlocking mobile phone, and adopts black technologies such as voice-activated camera, which not only achieved unprecedented sales and reputation, but also laid a solid foundation for the high-end Mate series.
Released in 2015, the Mate 8 is the world’s first commercial 16nm FinFET plus SoC chip and the first mobile phone with black technologies such as stereo navigation.
In 2016, the Mate 9 series was Huawei’s first commercial mobile phone with Cortex-A73 and Mali G71 octa-core GPU in the world. It brings the Mate series into a new era.
In 2017, the Huawei Mate 10 series took the lead in opening the era of mobile artificial intelligence and became the world’s first smartphone equipped with artificial intelligence chips. Huawei’s AI smart camera has been well-known since then, and has caused many competing products to imitate.
In 2018, Huawei Mate 20 became the world’s first mobile phone equipped with a 7nm SoC chip and seven world’s first Kirin 980 chips. It is also the world’s first mobile phone that supports wireless reverse charging technology.
In 2019, Mate30 was released, which put professional super-sensing camera capabilities in hand. It is equipped with the world’s first commercial flagship 5G SoC chip Kirin 990, which won the world’s best 5G mobile phone signal, the world’s largest bottom mobile phone movie lens, and the world’s fastest Wireless charging and many other world firsts. In 2020, Mate40 will be released, which has fully evolved in terms of chips, photography, charging, interaction, etc., once again leading the high-end flagship machine of the year.
Under Yu Chengdong’s leadership, Huawei’s mobile phone has climbed from obscurity to China’s No. 1 and the world’s No. 2. After ten years of hard work, Huawei has completed the transformation from a disruptor to a leader in the global mobile phone terminal business.
But at this time, Huawei mobile phones encountered unprecedented difficulties.
In Yu Chengdong’s words, the difficulty ten years ago was that no one recognized and knew Huawei’s brand, but today, ten years later, we have accumulated a lot of core technologies and core capabilities, but we have not done so in the past two years. Products are available to everyone.
From difficulty to success, from success to fall, for Yu Chengdong and his team, it is undoubtedly a huge baptism in the heart.
Believe in the power of “believe”: Huawei chooses to be a “believer” walking through the black barrier
The time is pulled back to 2020. The core technology is stuck, the supply chain is restricted, and the market share is constantly being eroded…..
Huawei’s terminal business has even experienced a “half-cut” revenue decline, losing a large number of channel partners. In desperation, Glory left “independently” and set up a new family. After experiencing the darkest moment for two years, Huawei once fell into a historical trough.
At that time, if the difficulties encountered by Huawei were placed on other mobile phone manufacturers, it would have been unimaginable. After such a big fall, it is almost impossible to get back up.
But for Huawei, an innovative company that highly believes that technology is king, it is obviously impossible to sink here. They choose to believe in the power of “belief”, choose to be a hero tempered in hardships, and a “believer” walking through black barriers. Perhaps as Yu Chengdong said, there are many roads to the top of the mountain, and Huawei chooses the most difficult and most valuable one. No matter how difficult you encounter, you must go on firmly until you see the dawn.
Of course, behind choosing to believe, strength is needed to support it. As a representative of Chinese technology companies, Huawei’s achievements today are closely related to its efforts to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in innovative research and development for nearly 30 years.
According to public information, Huawei’s R&D expenses in 2021 will be as high as RMB 142.7 billion, accounting for about 22.4% of its annual revenue. According to Huawei’s third quarterly report for 2022, in the first three quarters, Huawei achieved revenue of 441.141 billion yuan, with a net revenue of 441.141 billion yuan. The profit was 23.927 billion yuan.
Judging from the data, Huawei continues to invest heavily in research and development. In the first three quarters, Huawei’s research and development expenses reached 110.581 billion yuan, an increase of 8.241 billion yuan compared with 102.34 billion yuan in the same period last year.
It is understood that Huawei has invested 845 billion yuan in research and development in the past 10 years, and invests more than 20 billion yuan in basic research every year.
At the same time, more than half of Huawei’s employees are R&D personnel. In 2021, Huawei will have about 107,000 personnel engaged in research and development, accounting for about 54.8% of the company’s total headcount.
Almost crazy R & D investment, in exchange for countless invention patents and technological innovations.
Previously, the China Enterprise Confederation released a list showing that among the top ten companies with invention patents, Huawei ranked first with 99,000 patents.
According to public information, as of the end of 2021, Huawei holds a total of more than 45,000 valid authorized patent families (more than 110,000 pieces) around the world, and more than 90% of the patents are invention patents. Huawei ranks first in the number of patents granted by the State Intellectual Property Office of China and the European Patent Office in 2021, and ranks fifth in the number of patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 2021.
What is lost must be brought back! 684 days to wait for the “Flagship King Fried”
After falling to the bottom, Huawei Mate50 will be a “battle of life and death” for Huawei, and it must appear in the world with more amazing technology. Live up to expectations, after holding back for two years, Huawei finally brought “King Zang”.
From October 22, 2020 to September 6, 2022, after waiting for 684 days, the Huawei Mate 50 series finally met with consumers. The Mate 50 series, which has returned to the public eye, chooses to solve the core pain points of consumers with an extremely innovative experience.
In terms of technological innovation, the Huawei Mate 50 series is not only the 2022 flagship, but also the king of “black technology”.
After more than 20 years of star formation, the Beidou system has turned from an idea into a reality, and Huawei has “installed” complex satellite terminals into mobile phones for the first time.
The Huawei Mate50 series is the industry’s first mass smartphone that supports Beidou satellite messages, making it possible to send text messages even when there is no signal.
Starting from “0”, Huawei engineers designed a complete set of test and verification system, starting from the ground (communication protocol), looking up to the starry sky (satellite platform), and finally realized the smooth implementation of the Beidou system to mass consumer smart terminals. This is a small step for Huawei, but a giant leap for the industry.
This means that Huawei is the first in the industry to allow satellite communications to enter popular smartphones, and has the ability to truly cover communications without dead ends. For people who love outdoor adventures and special industries, the mobile phone has this function, and there is an additional channel to protect life. Its success will not only open the prelude to the great development of terminal satellite communications, but also become a chapter in the history of communications.
The Huawei Mate50 series also pioneered Kunlun Glass, which is 10 times more resistant to falls, and the drop resistance of the whole machine has been increased to 10 times. According to statistics, more than 50% of the after-sales processing in the smartphone industry is for repairing glass panels. Among them, it is worth noting that almost all screen damages are caused by users accidentally dropping them during use.
For a mobile phone brand, the drop of the mobile phone occurs after the user buys the mobile phone. The user will only complain to the manufacturer because the mobile phone accidentally drops or the screen is broken, but not because of the reliable glass panel of a certain brand. Its a priority. From the perspective of a company operator, it takes a lot of determination to insist on investing resources for such features that are difficult to be seen by consumers, and to continuously iterate and upgrade. This is also an externalization of the “Kunlun” spirit, paying tribute to the bravery in the extreme.
In terms of imaging innovation, Huawei Mate 50 series is the first flagship product empowered by Huawei XMAGE imaging technology. Its ultra-variable XMAGE imaging system is the first public appearance of XMAGE in the public eye. From a technical point of view, the innovations it brings include: super optical zoom camera, super macro telephoto camera and unique XMAGE image style.
In the context of the industry where the photosensitive elements of smartphones are infinitely approaching 1 inch, the size of the photosensitive elements of smartphones can no longer be expanded arbitrarily due to the limitations of their own size and portability requirements. Huawei chose to use the “variable aperture” technology to achieve the best match between the optical system and the mechanical structure in a small body space, thereby maximizing the module capability. Not only can it perceive light and dark, it brings stronger night scene and portrait shooting capabilities; it also supports ten adjustable physical apertures to realize the free adjustment of the depth of field range and the degree of blur.
The main camera of the Huawei Mate50 series is equipped with the industry’s first ten-speed physical variable aperture, which has the industry’s largest aperture of F1.4, and realizes F1.4-F4.0 aperture adjustment by adjusting the opening and closing of the six aperture blades. In the automatic mode, there are four smart apertures, which can intelligently match the aperture size according to different scenes, bringing gradual and layered optical blur.
In addition, using a long-process focus motor, the super macro telephoto camera designed by Huawei Mate50 RS Porsche achieves a telephoto with a digital zoom of up to 100 times and a super macro effect with a digital zoom of 35 times. Compared with wide-angle macro, telephoto macro has better distortion control, shallower depth of field, and longer focusing distance. In particular, macro shooting can be completed without disturbing the subject at a long distance, achieving a more realistic and prominent subject and a more natural background blur effect.
What’s more worth mentioning is the unique image style of Huawei XMAGE. Through in-depth R&D and innovation of optical, mechanical, electrical, and computing technology routes, Huawei Imaging XMAGE has formed four core styles of realism, moistness, transparency, and breathing, allowing users to see at a glance that the photos are made by Huawei mobile phones. shoot.
The thickening of optical components has brought challenges to the appearance design of mobile phones. What Huawei wants to rewrite is not only the image order, but also a new aesthetic logic. There is a saying that “the simpler the more complex”, how can the simple and pure design be compatible with the powerful XMAGE imaging system performance of Huawei Mate50 series?
Huawei people choose to pay attention to the details rather than extremes. Behind the sense of refinement and quality is the overthrow of countless design schemes, and finally brought the iconic axially symmetrical design and high-end quality craftsmanship. In terms of ID design innovation, the Huawei Mate 50 series inherits the classic ring camera layout based on the classic central axis symmetry design, and incorporates the “Paris studs” design concept to bring a high-end and luxurious texture.
In the end, all efforts are aimed at user approval. On September 21, 2022, the first day of the official launch of the Huawei Mate series, there were long queues at Huawei stores across the country. Consumers queued up to buy online and offline stores, and some scalpers even asked for a price increase. This special “fireworks” is really long-lost for Huawei.
The first sales record and user experience proved once again that the high-end flagship representative with its own highlights – Huawei Mate series, it is back.
If it is not the ultimate, but not for it: only Mate can surpass Mate
At this point, we finally understand what Yu Chengdong said, only Mate can surpass Mate.
Through the 10-year firm and persistent technological long march of Huawei Mate series and the rebirth of Huawei Mate50 series, we have seen Huawei’s team belief that it will not retreat in the face of strong winds, and that it must be the ultimate and not do it;
What we see is Huawei’s determination to make great products, perseverance and firmness, and support for technological innovation to lead the industry;
What we have seen is the spiritual belief of Huawei people who face difficulties and fight bravely;
What we have seen more is that Huawei’s creed of being consumer-centered and striving-oriented.
From the Populus euphratica spirit of being born for a thousand years, dying for a thousand years, and falling for a thousand years, to the Kunlun spirit of not being afraid of hardships, never giving up, and daring to climb, no matter what kind of difficulties we encounter. Huawei is not afraid of dangers and harsh environments, and has the courage to climb.
It is the belief in the power of Mate that has brought Huawei Mate to where it is today.
It is the belief in Mate that has witnessed the high-end brand of Huawei Mate from scratch.
It is the trust in Mate that allows Huawei Mate to cross mountains and seas and finally see the light of day.
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