The Viral Rumor about Huawei Mate60’s Sales

As the most popular flagship smartphone currently, the Huawei Mate60 series is widely welcomed by consumers and has been in short supply for a long time. Even now, it still cannot be fully stocked. However, yesterday at noon, the hot search “Huawei Mate60 global sales exceed 30 million units” has attracted widespread attention from the entire network. Netizens are delighted by Huawei’s remarkable achievement, but some industry insiders have pointed out that this is false news, as the Kirin chip production capacity is insufficient.

Yesterday afternoon, a well-known tech media outlet claimed that the foreign media GSMArena reported that the global sales of the Huawei Mate60 series had exceeded 30 million units, breaking records to become the strongest domestically produced flagship phone.

This news sparked heated discussions online. After all, the number of 30 million units is quite staggering. Even the breakthrough of 1 million units for other domestic smartphones is worthy of a grand celebration. Isn’t Apple’s single phone sales just this much? However, many industry insiders have debunked the news as unreliable. On one hand, it contradicts the data published by media organizations before, and on the other hand, it defies common sense.

According to statistics from multiple authoritative institutions, Huawei’s global smartphone sales in 2023 were around 32 million units. So, did the Huawei Mate60 series sell 30 million units, leaving only 2 million units for other phone models? Moreover, the Huawei Mate60 series was launched in the fourth quarter of last year, with Huawei’s smartphone sales for that quarter standing at around 11 million units. So, who bought the remaining 19 million units? Is it possible that they only sold a little over 10 million units in three months last year, then in less than a month in 2024, they sold 20 million units?

Upon a little consideration, it becomes clear that the claim of “Huawei Mate60 global sales reaching 30 million units” is completely groundless; a close analysis of the source of the rumor reveals its falsehood.

On January 28th, a well-known digital influencer claimed that “the Huawei Mate60 sales exceeding 30 million units are true, breaking the historical sales record of the Mate series.” This influencer has been consistently publishing “hot” news related to Huawei, and has a large number of faithful followers online who unquestioningly believe in their statements. However, this news did not cause a public outcry online.

On January 29th, the foreign media GSMArena quoted the influencer’s post, but only with a brief sentence stating “reports claim that the Huawei Mate60 series has exceeded 30 million units in sales,” without providing any confirmation of the news.

On January 30th, a large number of domestic media outlets reposted GSMArena’s article, and some even treated the influencer’s post quoted by GSMArena as GSMArena’s “authoritative certification,” creating widespread discussions online. Some domestic media even intentionally cropped the original GSMArena article, deliberately exaggerating the sales information, which led to a huge wave of discussions and misinformation online.

As the industry insider Mr. Guan said, it is currently impossible for the Huawei Mate60 series to have sold 30 million units, as there is even a shortage of chips and the production capacity of the Kirin 9000S is still ramping up. If Huawei truly had such high sales, they would be able to meet the demand on a large scale, and wouldn’t have let Apple claim the title of the largest shipped smartphones in China in 2023.

So, how do you think the domestic influencer spreading rumors, the overseas media’s reposting, and the subsequent widespread media coverage as authoritative certification have caused trouble for Huawei?