The Huawei P50 will use Kirin 9000 chips, Samsung and LG OLED screens

Following the release of the Mate 40 device, Huawei is slowly shifting its focus to the P series. Despite US sanctions disrupting its supply line, the company is on track to launch P50 phones in the first half of 2021. This means that the P series can adhere to the usual March / April launch timeframe (or stay close to it anyway).

Elec reports that Samsung Display and LG Display are ready to ship OLED boards for the new models, citing well-informed sources. Samsung Display acquired a license to trade with Huawei in October, and LG seems to have done the same.

Huawei P50 phones will use the new Kirin 9000 chipsets from HiSilicon's internal department. This is already expected from before, and the new Kirin chips debut with the Mate series and are used in the next P series a few months later. But 2020 was anything but "ordinary".

 

Huawei stored several million Kirin 9000 chips for use in its phones before sanctions suspended cooperation with TSMC. It can be said that part of that delivery has been released, especially since the new Honor premium devices will not use Kirin, or Huawei hopes that TSMC will soon be able to secure a license and resume delivery of chips to Huawei.

Both Qualcomm and MediaTek have also applied for a license, so the company is not in danger of not having chipsets to power its phones. Of course, they would rather use their Kirin chipset in this situation, so this looks like a win for Huawei as well.

Last year, the company almost caught up with Samsung, as Huawei's premium lines (P + Mate) delivered 44 million units, and in 2019, very close to Samsung's leading lines (S + Note), which reached 45 million. The company’s troubles this year will allow Samsung to improve its market performance, but the race may restart in 2021 if Huawei does indeed establish its supply line, as this report suggests.