Huawei phones see big price hikes in grey market as Kirin chips can't be produced in future

Huawei Mate, P40, NOVA series have seen varying degrees of price increases in Shenzhen Huaqiangbei market because Kirin chips will not be able to continue production in the future. 

While sales staff at Huawei and Honor's authorized experience stores have said there are no price hikes in stores for all models, these products have gone up in non-authorized stores, according to nbd.com.cn. 

Some vendors in Huaqiangbei said that mobile phones equipped with Huawei's Kirin chip generally increased in price by about 300 yuan, with Huawei Mate30 Porsche Edition rising by as much as 3,000 yuan, the report said, adding that dealers began to stock up on Huawei phones.

On August 7, Huawei's consumer business CEO Richard Yu said that Huawei's Kirin high-end chips could not be manufactured after September 15 due to US sanctions.

Huawei Mate40 will have Kirin 9000, the last gen of high-end Kirin chip

Yu said: "Due to the second round of sanctions, the production of the chips will be cut-off after September 15, this may be the last generation of Kirin high-end chip."

Yu predicted that Huawei's full-year shipments of mobile phones could be less than the 240 million units it shipped in 2019. He said Huawei's mobile phone business is struggling right now with a difficult supply of chips.

Huawei will launch the Mate 40 this fall with the Kirin 9000 chip, which may be the last generation of Kirin chips designed by Huawei.

For Huawei's current situation, Tianfeng International analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said, regardless of whether Huawei can obtain mobile phone parts after September 15, Huawei's competitiveness in the mobile phone market and market share will be adversely affected.

Kuo believes that the best case scenario for Huawei is to see its market share decrease, and the worst case scenario is to exit the mobile phone market.

Previously it was reported that Huawei will start using two sets of processor options on the Mate40, where the Chinese version will still be equipped with the new Kirin chip, while the overseas version will be chosen from Qualcomm, MediaTek and even Samsung.