Huawei Mate 50 series could launch in 2022 as company reportedly receives ‘major’ component shipments

Huawei Mate 50 is expected to be one of the flagship smartphones to enter the market next year. Despite its absence this year, the company reportedly plans to launch the series in 2022 after receiving significant component shipments recently.

The latest update comes from known leakers on Weibo and Twitter. A tipster from the Chinese social network reported earlier this week that Huawei “made a major breakthrough in supply.” A similar report was posted by leaker Teme, who said the company “received major reliefs for component deliveries” that should benefit the production of the Huawei Mate 50 series.

The constrained supply chain has been an issue to several tech companies for at least a year now. But Huawei is facing an even greater challenge as it remains in the United States Entity List. That means the U.S. government has officially prohibited American companies from doing business with Huawei. The sanction also prohibited all manufacturers using American technologies from supplying parts or processing chips to the Chinese tech giant.

With these challenges on deck, it was not surprising that the Huawei Mate 50 did not launch this year. There were even rumors that Huawei had canceled the series altogether. However, more recent reports claim the Mate series is still in the pipeline.

The U.S. government later allowed Qualcomm to supply Huawei with 4G chips, which explains why most Huawei P50 units are powered by a 4G version of the Snapdragon 888. Since the Huawei Mate 50 is not expected to launch until the first half of 2022, Huawei could once again partner with Qualcomm to get 4G versions of the Snapdragon 898.

Aside from hardware parts, the sanction has also prevented Huawei from using Google software products, such as the Android operating system and other Google mobile services like the Play Store. It forced Huawei to complete the development of its in-house mobile OS called HarmonyOS 2.0, which came pre-installed in the Huawei P50 phones sold in China.

Despite the public launch of HarmonyOS, the version of Huawei nova 9 that launched in Europe recently was only powered by the EMUI 12. So while the Huawei P50 is confirmed to get a global release in 2022, it is unclear if Huawei would be able to ship it with HarmonyOS. As for the Huawei Mate 50, it could also initially launch in China with HarmonyOS but whether it would be available in other regions is still unknown.