Competing with iPhone Air? Huawei Mate 70 Air suddenly goes on sale.

Just a few days after the iPhone Air went on sale, the "Huawei Air" has also arrived.

On October 21st, a new mobile phone - Huawei Mate 70 Air - suddenly appeared in the telecommunications terminal product library.

Industry insiders speculate that it will be officially released in November.

Huawei's Air has also arrived

The Huawei Mate 70 Air will be available in three color options: Brilliant Gold Black, Feather White, and Gold - Silver Brocade, and will come pre - installed with the HarmonyO5.0 system.

This phone is equipped with a 6.9 - inch screen with a resolution of 1920x1200, slightly larger than the 6.5 - inch model of the iPhone Air, and supports NFC functionality.

Its appearance is basically the same as the Mate 70, following the classic central - axis symmetric layout and the large star - ring camera module of the Mate series.

The difference is that its side lines are more rounded, and the back - cover glass and the middle frame have a seamless micro - arc transition, making the whole phone lighter and thinner.

According to the leak, the Mate 80 series will be released in November, and this phone is expected to make an appearance at the same launch event.

Previously, many people speculated that this would be Huawei's eSIM model, but since the bottom of the phone wasn't shown this time, it's unclear if it will be the first to feature it.

Currently, the specific thickness of the phone hasn't been revealed, but judging from its name, it should focus on being light and thin.

In terms of price, referring to the pricing of Huawei's Mate series in recent years, the starting price is expected to be around 5,999 yuan.

Huawei's sales decline, dropping from first to third

In the second quarter of this year, Huawei took the top spot in the Chinese mobile phone market with an 18.1% market share, but was pushed down by vivo in the third quarter.

According to IDC data, vivo firmly held the first place with a 17.3% market share; Apple followed closely behind, ranking second with a 15.8% share.

Huawei dropped to third place with a 15.2% share, 1.9% less than in the second quarter.

The decline in sales of the Pura80 series is one of the important reasons.

This series was released on June 11, 2025, and includes four models: the standard version, Pro, Pro +, and Ultra. The starting price was 4,699 yuan, targeting the mid - to - high - end market.

Although there were multiple official price cuts after its release, especially during the Huawei Thanksgiving Promotion Season in September, when the Pura 80 Pro had a direct price cut of 1,000 yuan and the Ultra version had a cut of 1,500 yuan, the sales still didn't meet expectations.

According to the digital blogger "Digital Chat Station", as of October 5th, the domestic activation sales of the Pura 80 series were only 1.669 million units.

Among them, the standard version had 518,000 units sold, and the combined sales of the Ultra and Pro + versions were only 421,000 units. Only the Pro version achieved a reverse growth of 160% with 730,000 units sold, becoming the only bright spot in the whole series.

Compared with the nearly 4 million units sold by the previous generation in the same period, this result is indeed much worse.

There are mainly two reasons behind this.

Firstly, the release schedule was too delayed. The model that should have been launched in April didn't go on sale until June, coinciding with the period when Apple was clearing its inventory at low prices.

Secondly, as Huawei's first large - scale pure HarmonyOS flagship launched into the market, many software adaptations weren't in place, resulting in problems such as interface freezing and app crashes.

Currently, the newly revealed Mate 70 Air is more for pre - heating, and the pressure now lies on the Mate 80 series to be released in November.

This series includes four models: Mate 80, Mate 80 Pro, Mate 80 Pro +, and Mate 80 RS Master of Excellence, offering four color options: black, white, cyan, and green.

One of the highlights of the Mate 80 series is the global debut of the Kirin 9030 chip, which will be Huawei's most powerful mobile phone chip.

It's worth looking forward to whether there will be any surprises in the price.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Technology Daily Push" (ID: apptoday). Author: Huang Wanyi, Editor: Zhou Weipeng. Republished by 36Kr with permission.