(Yicai) April 16 -- The consumer products honcho at Huawei Technologies has teased the release of the Pura 70, the Chinese tech giant's new high-end flagship smartphone series, after it failed to debut at a recent launch event.

“There’ll be good news in a few days,” Richard Yu, chief executive of Shenzhen-based Huawei’s consumer business group, told Yicai today.

Some Huawei phone dealers in China’s southern Guangdong province received notice to prepay for new products yesterday. “The exact arrival time is still unclear,” one told Yicai. “Everyone predicts sales will launch on Friday, but it could be earlier.”

Some Huawei stores in Guangzhou, the provincial capital, and Shenzhen have started accepting pre-orders in the form of a CNY100 (USD13.80) deposit, so that customers can be informed as soon as the Pura 70 launches.

The series will likely be priced at between CNY6,000 and CNY8,000 (USD830 and USD1,105) apiece, according to a salesperson at a Huawei experience store in Guangzhou. The highest performance version is expected to cost more than CNY10,000 (USD1,380), the person added.

Huawei has renamed its P series as Pura, which means ‘pure’ and ‘pristine’ in Spanish. The company registered the 'Pura' and 'Huawei Pura' trademarks in 2019, according to business registration information.

According to earlier reports, the standard version of the Pura will support the BeiDou navigation satellite messaging service, while the high-end version will also have a satellite calling function.

The Pura 70 will fill the final gap in Huawei's product lineup, Ivan Lam, a senior analyst at Counterpoint, told Yicai. In the price range above USD800, Huawei is one of Apple's main competitors, he noted.

Apple’s iPhone sales in China fell 24 percent in the first six weeks of 2024 from a year ago, with its market share shrinking to 15.7 percent from 19 percent, while Huawei’s phone sales soared 64 percent and its market share jumped to 16.5 percent from 9.4 percent, according to Counterpoint.

If demand remains strong, shipments of the Pura 70 will likely reach 13 million to 15 million, noted Guo Mingji, an analyst at TF International Securities. But even if demand slows, some 10 million to 12 million units will probably be shipped, Guo added.

The Mate and Pura series are Huawei’s two main high-end smartphone brands. It released the Mate60 last August. 

The development and shipment pace of Huawei phones has returned to normal, He Gang, chief operating officer of its device business group, said last year. New Mate and Pura series models will be released each year as usual, and the company will not give up on the overseas market, he pointed out.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev