Background

Getting detailed information about sales volumes for specific Huawei models is hard. Therefore this analysis is based on the overall picture for smartphone sales from Huawei Consumer Business Group, combined with relevant official communications from Huawei about sales volumes for a few specific models, where such have been obtained.

If unfamiliar with Huawei, this Fortune.com article is a good start.

The bigger picture for Huawei smartphones

• 2014: 75 million units shipped (source: Huawei)
• 2015: 108 million units shipped (source: Huawei)
• 2016: 139.3 million units shipped (+30.2% year-on-year) (source: Huawei)
• 2017H1: 73.01 million units shipped (+20.6% year-on-year) (source: Huawei)

By the third quarter of 2016, 60% of Huawei’s smartphone shipments were mid- and high-priced devices.

For 2017 as a whole, Huawei is targeting shipments of 140 million to 150 million units. A modest increase from 139.3 million units in 2016. But they’ve stated “We are giving up the very low-end devices because the margin in this is extremely low, and it’s not making enough profit for us,” (source). But according to 2017H1 reporting, they’ve still seen a 20.6% increase in total shipped units year-on-year, and their transition into flagship devices have been a fast one “By the third quarter of 2016, 60% of Huawei’s smartphone shipments were mid- and high-priced devices, a striking reversal of its past reliance on cheap handsets.” (Fortune.com)

Product series

Huawei currently have two main flagship series, named P-series and Mate-series. P-series is usually updated and announced at Mobile World Congress in Q1, and then released in Q1 or Q2. Mate-series is usally announced and released in Q3 or Q4. These two series are designed to go head to head as competition against Apple and Samsung’s flagship series. Huawei also has a subsidiary company named “Honor”. Honor also release a few models which sits in the “flagship-whereabouts”. Usually sharing a lot of the hardware specifications of their more expensive Huawei P and Mate-series, but usually priced cheaper, and marketed more against the younger audience.

• For 2016 Imint AB have confirmed Vidhance stabilization beeing run in the Mate 9 (source). This was disclosed after a firmware analysis of the phone revealed that Vidhance was used in this model. It led to a trading halt of Imint AB on Aktietorget 20th January 2017. (source). After Imint AB confirmed they where part of the Mate 9 phone, and thereby also confirming that Huawei was one of their customers, trading resumed on January 23rd.
• Imint AB have never confirmed Vidhance beeing part of the P10 model, but according to firmware analysis, I’m personally sure it does.
• Imint have never confirmed Vidhance beeing part of an Honor-series phone. But I’m personally sure Vidhance is included in one of their 2017 flagship phones, the “Honor 9”.

My claims regarding Vidhance beeing part of the P10 have been peer reviewed by others, and my claim of Vidhance beeing used in the Honor 9 is a peer review of another persons original claim. There are several community members who have run analysis on these firmwares, and come to the same conclusions. For the remainder of this article, Vidhance beeing used in Mate 9, P10 and Honor 9 is considered a fact by the author.

Both the Mate 9 and the P10 comes in several variants. The variants are:

For the remainder of the article, unless other is stated, by referring to “Mate 9” or “P10” I refer to all the variants of that phone, except for the “Lite” variant that does not run Vidhance software. The “Lite” variants of Huawei phones are usually a lot lesser than the main product. Sometimes more or less just a rebrand of a last year model.

Background summary

Vidhance is currently beeing used in the following product-lines by Huawei (and Honor):

• Mate 9
• P10
• Honor 9

Vidhance is beeing run in all “flagship”-phones released by Huawei for the last 12 months, and it’s also used in the latest “flagship”-phone by “Honor”-subsidiary. Honor have earlier in the year released another flagship phone (“Honor V9 (China), AKA Honor 8 Pro (Western markets)). The appearance of Vidhance in the Honor-brand is major, as it confirms Honor beeing a part of the license-agreement with Huawei. Honor would by itself be considered a large global smartphone brand, but their sales are included in Huawei’s sales on global market share statistics.

Detailed sales - specific models

This is where things become hard. Huawei seldom provide detailed statistics of sales volume for it’s models. Bits and pieces are sometimes dropped through annual reports or an occasional press release. So let’s start with some known facts.

P8 Lite

We know that by Februar 2016, the P8 Lite had shipped above 10 million units, since it’s release in April 2015. The entire P8 series (all P8 models) had by the same time shipped above 16 million units (source). Huawei have provided a detailed monthly shipment chart for this specific model, which is quite unique, and therefore an important data source.

P9

Although the P8 Lite managed to sell above 10 million units, P9 was credited by Huawei as beeing the first “flagship” device to do so.

General sales

Here is a table trying to give every known sales volumes by offical (or at least credible) sources, for all Huawei and Honor models that might be relevant for predicting the sales volumes of the models running Vidhance. Italic data points are estimations based upon other known datapoints, marked in bold. Paranthesis mark the source of information for the datapoint.

Mate 9

The Mate 9 family includes the “Mate 9”, “Mate 9 Pro” and “Mate 9 Porsche design”. The Mate 9 Family was announced in October 2016, and went on sale in China in November. Availability in most of western Europa, along with the US was not in place until January 2017. Early Mate 9 sales where likely helped by the Samsung Note 7 incident, and 2016 also beeing a year where Apple only did smaller updates to it’s iPhone.

As we really lack any good data points for how the Mate 8 sold during it’s lifetime, it’s hard to predict sales for the Mate 9 based on it’s predecessor alone. But we know Mate 9 sold at least 5 million units within it’s first four months (source), and that this was 36% more than the Mate 8, putting the Mate 8 sales at roughly 3.68 million units at the same time in it’s life. We also know the Mate 8 sold at least 7 million units during it’s first 12 months, but we’re not sure exactly when that happened, so I assume it to be in it’s 12th month (but it could have been earlier).

We also know that the Mate 9 had sold 8.5 million units within it’s 7th month. This seems to put it right “up there” with P9 sales, following quite similar sales volumes as the P9 through it’s 4th to 7th months beeing available. The Mate-series probably doesn’t usually sell as well as the P-series, so this could seem a bit strange, but when adding in the fact that 2017H1 have seen a 20.6% total volume increase for Huawei smartphones, a new Mate-series selling comparable to last years P-series might not be as unlikely anymore.

Looking at all data we got for all relevant Huawei/Honor phones, monthly unit shipping seems to be very strong (actually near it’s peak) around the 7th month after a release. It should be safe to assume Mate 9 is still selling in relative good volumes.

Mate 9 - Conclusion

Based on similarity with P9 in sales volumes so far, the fact that Mate-series is usually outsold by the P-series, but accounting for that 2017 so far have shown a 20.6% unit shipment increase from Huawei, I’m guessing the Mate 9 will sell somwhere in the ballpark of the P9 in it’s first 12 months. More specifically 10-12 million units.

P10

The P10 family includes the “P10” and the “P10 Plus”. The “P10 Lite” is not included as it does not run Vidhance software. The P10 Family was announced in February 2017, and went on sale somewhere in the second part of March.

The P10 is a direct successor of the P9. Luckily we got quite good data points for the P9. We know the P9 had shipped 6 million units in it’s 5th month, 9 million in it’s 8th month, and 12 million in it’s 11th month. That makes for an average 1 million/month shipped units for seven consecutive months. We know nothing (so far) about how the P9 continued to sell after it’s 11th month.

The only data we got for the P10, is that it had sold above 6 million units in it’s 3rd month. The P9 didn’t reach 6 million until it’s 5th month. So the P10 seem to have outsold the P9 by a huge margin for it’s first quarter. P10 looks on track to shatter the previous sales-record from the company.

P10 - Conclusion

Huaweis previous flagship record is held by the P9 which sold 12 million units within it’s first 11 months. The only data point we got for P10 so far, shows it’s selling 36% better than the P9 did at that point in time. As Huawei have seen an overall 20.6% increase in 2017H1 on total unit shipments (all models), and P10 seemingly a very big success with the consumers, I’d say a modest 25% increase over P9 could be realistic. That will put P10 sales after 11 months on market somewhwere around 15-16 million units. Competition will be harder this autumn than the last, because of the anniversary iPhone, and a Samsung Note 8 that so far hasnt’t exploded.

Honor 9

This is tough. Detailed sales about any Honor model are hard to come by. We know that yearly sales of the Honor subsidiary accounted for approximately 60 million units of Huawei’s total 139.3 shipped units. Other than that, the only data available is that Honor 8 sold 1.5 million units by it’s second month after release, while the Honor 9 (with Vidhance) has exceeded 1 million during it’s first month on market. These numbers seem to be in line with the Huawei Mate 8 and the Huawei P8 Lite. Which respectively sold 7 million units at 12 months for the Mate, and 10 million units at 9 months for the P8. That’s quite a span.

Honor 9 - Conclusion

Based on strong year-on-year growth for the Honor brand, and the “Honor 9” relatively cheap price compared to the P10, one could expect this to sell a lot of units. But it got a lot of competition from other Huawei / Honor models. Earlier this year, Honor released the “Honor V9” in china, which was rebranded into the “Honor 8 Pro” in international markets. It’s specifications and price is pretty equal to both the Honor 9, and the Huawei P10. So quite a lot of potential Honor 9 customers, probably end up with a “Honor V9 / Honor 8 Pro” or a P10 instead. As we know P10 sales look incredible strong so far, my guess is that the Honor 9 will sell somewhere around 8-10 million units in it’s first 12 months. But I’m feeling less confident in this prediction than for the Mate 9 and P10.

Conclusion

Expect Mate 9, P10 and Honor 9 to combined sell between 33 to 38 million units during their first 12 months on market.

The current models from Huawei / Honor with Vidhance included is:

• Mate 9 family
• P10 family
• Honor 9

Expect Mate 9, P10 and Honor 9 to combined sell between 33 to 38 million units during their first 12 months on market.

That is counting each model from it’s release, and 12 months out. They are likely to continue selling some millions (combined) even after 12 months, but a lack of good data points at this make it hard to predict from after 12 months.