Huawei’s Pura 70 Pro smartphone revealed a notable shift towards localization as it was found to have a significant increase in the proportion of Chinese-made components, according to teardown specialists at iFixit. The inclusion of a NAND chip manufactured by China-based YMTC underscores this trend. Unlike its Mate 60 series predecessors, the device demonstrated Huawei’s push to rely on Chinese suppliers for solid-state memory, increasing the ratio of Chinese components across the new smartphone series.
These preliminary findings were drawn by TechInsights specialists following their investigation into the component base of Huawei’s Pura 70, 70 Pro, 70 Pro Plus, and 70 Ultra smartphones, as reported by South China Morning Post. Canadian researchers have begun identifying the vast majority of semiconductor components used to manufacture these phones. Their overall conclusions revealed that Huawei has not only increased the proportion of Chinese-made components in its smartphones but has also reached an all-time high.
Based on the current phase of component analysis, which is yet to be completed, 33 out of 69 components discovered on the printed circuit boards of the Pura 70 and Pura 70 Pro were of Chinese origin, while only 5 were definitively imported. However, this proportion could change as not all of the 69 components had been identified at the time of report.
Notably, Huawei continues to use DDR5 memory chips of Korean brands. While the Pura 70 and Pura 70 Pro feature SK hynix chips, the elder models utilize memory manufactured by Samsung Electronics. On the other hand, the more component-dense circuit board of the Pura 70 Pro Plus has fewer Chinese-origin parts, only 22 compared to the 33 in its affordable sibling models. Only three of the Pura 70 Pro Plus components were produced outside China. However, TechInsights specialists have yet to determine the origin of 52 other components on the Pura 70 Pro Plus board.
On a related note, it was discovered that the Pura 70 Ultra features a 128-layer 3D NAND memory from China’s YMTC with a capacity of 512 GB, in addition to a more advanced 232-layer 1 TB 3D NAND. Analysts at TechInsights predict Huawei will deliver over 50 million smartphones to the Chinese market this year, a 12% increase from last year. This will position the company as the eighth largest global smartphone supplier, representing 5% of the global market share. It’s noteworthy to say that the export versions of the new Pura 70 series of Huawei smartphones will only support 4G networks, according to the source.
