Huawei’s Executive Director and CEO of the Consumer Business Group, Richard (Chengdong) Yu, has been interviewed by GSM Arena recently. During the interview, Mr. Yu talked about quite a few things, including the P30 series design, foldable smartphones, and so on.
Let’s focus on the P30 series first, shall we. Mr. Yu was asked to comment on the Huawei P30 series camera setup, including both the device’s rear and front cameras. Richard Yu emphasized the company’s periscope camera system and its zoom capabilities, claiming that such zoom is in strong demand.
He also touched on the fact that the phone’s front camera does not support autofocus, as he was specifically asked about that. He basically said that the company opted not to include autofocus, as people usually take photos with fixed proportions when taking a selfie, you extend your hand and take a selfie. He said that it’s most important to use a proper sensor for the front-facing camera, and he claims that the 32-megapixel unit in the P30 series is just the right sensor, as it can take really good pics even in low light conditions.
Mr. Yu said that the P30 Pro does not include 4K recording at 60fps as the benefits of 4K can only be seen on very large screens, even though the company did include 4K recording at 30fps, but Mr. Yu recommends consumers to utilize the phone’s fullHD recording, as the company did not think it’s worth including 4K recording at 60fps in this case, not only would it include a ton more storage, but it would not really make a difference to the vast majority of people.
Speaking of the P30 series, Mr. Yu actually said that the P30’s “chin” is a bit thinner than the P30 Pro’s, while he also mentioned that the company could have made that “chin” disappear completely on both devices, but that the company opted not to do that. He said that using a phone without a thin bezel on the bottom would be awkward, and because the company wanted to avoid accidental touches.
Apple, digital keys, foldable phones & more
Huawei’s CEO was also asked to comment on Apple’s newly-announced streaming service, to which he said that it’s a good move for the company, but that Huawei does not plan to compete in that sector, at least not outside of China.
Some of you may know that Huawei introduced a digital car key functionality, and that feature is currently limited to Audi. When asked if the functionality will be coming to other cars, Mr. Yu said that “it’s a work in progress”, but that the feature will be coming to BMW, Volkswagen, and a number of other big companies.
Mr. Yu said that he expects costs of foldable phones to decrease as time goes by, quite a bit, so foldable devices will become considerably more affordable in the future. He also added that foldable phones are unpredictable, in terms of future devices, of course. It is possible that they will take over the market at some point, but that it’s difficult to say what will happen next. He also confirmed that the company has plans to release a smaller foldable device.
Huawei’s CEO also said that he expects commercial 5G to become available in the middle of 2019, May-June, and that the company’s first 5G devices (Mate X, and the 5G variant of the Mate 20 X) to begin shipping from June. Mr. Yu said that he expects Huawei to grow further in 2019, and that the year already seems promising based on results thus far. In fact, he said that the company’s growth speed is already more than 50-percent higher compared to last year, which is impressive.