Huawei has unveiled its latest smart screen product, an OLED smart TV priced at RMB 24,999 (USD 3,537)—its most expensive device ever—at an online conference Wednesday night, together with other products including its flagship P40 smartphones series, smartwatches, and speakers.
Huawei‘s latest offering in the Internet of Things (IoT) category, the X65 smart screen features an 65-inch 4K HDR OLED screen, 120Hz high display refresh rate, a 24 MP ultra-wide-angle camera powered by Huawei’s HiSilicon chipset, and 14 speakers for surround sound.
The TV, powered by Huawei’s in-house operative system Harmony OS, allows air gesture control functions to pause, replay, and mute, among other functions, without a physical remote. When users leave while a video is playing, the device is able to track the movement and automatically pause, and restart when users come back, says Huawei.
Along with the debut of the X65, Huawei also introduced the Chinese version of its new smartphone flagship series, with the P40, P40 Pro, and P40 Pro+ devices, after its previous launch for the international market on March 26.
The three models are all powered by the company’s self-developed 5G Kirin 990 processors. The Chinese version of these devices starts at RMB 4,188 (USD 592) for the P40, cheaper than its international version, at USD 867, while the upper-end P40 Pro+ costs RMB 7,988 (USD 1,130) in China, and USD 1,519 in international markets.
Other new offerings include Huawei’s laptop MateBook X Pro 2020, the new Watch GT 2 wearable device, and the Sound X speaker.
In November 2019, during a conference, Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei’s consumer business, told local media outlet 36Kr that new product launch events dedicated to IoT products will become the norm, as the internet of things (IoT) will be a priority alongside smartphone products in Huawei’s “1+8+N” strategy.
Huawei’s new strategy put the smartphone at the center (“1”), with eight types of smart gadgets including PCs, speakers, and watches (“8”), all interconnected to smart mobility and entertainment systems (“N”).
Last year, Huawei shipped more than 240 million smartphones globally, surpassing Apple to become the world’s second-largest smartphone vendor, trailing only Samsung, according to industry data provider IDC.
However, Huawei’s consumer business lost at least USD 10 billion in the overseas market last year, hurt by the US sanctions. In the year ended on December 31, 2019, Huawei nailed USD 123 billion in revenue and USD 9 billion net profit, as KrASIA reported. The numbers were up 19.1% and 5.6% year-on-year respectively, highlighting the multinational corporation’s lowest profit growth in recent years.
Moving into a new year with both the US sanctions and the global coronavirus pandemic, the company’s rotating chairman Xu Zhijun told media in a press conference that the company would “strive to survive in 2020, and strive to be able to release annual report again next year.”
