Huawei defends its privacy record, calling AT&T snub a ‘big loss’

China’s largest smartphone maker defended its record after the US phone carrier walked away from a Mate 10 smartphone distribution deal

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The new Huawei Mate 10 Pro. Photo: EPA-EFE

Sarah Daiin BeijingandZen Sooin Hong Kong

Published: 9:00am, 10 Jan 2018Updated: 11:51pm, 10 Jan 2018

Huawei Technologies consumer chief Richard Yu Chengdong said the breakdown in talks to distribute its flagship smartphone through US phone carrier AT&T was a “big loss” to both parties, while defending the Chinese company’s track record in privacy and security protection.

It was supposed to be a moment of triumph for Yu to announce at the CES technology conference that the Shenzhen-based telecommunications giant has finally secured a partnership with a major US carrier to sell its flagship phone. A deal is important because more than 90 per cent of smartphone sales in the US are made through carriers.

After introducing the features of the Mate 10 to a packed audience in the cavernous Palazzo ballroom in the Venetian Las Vegas hotel for about an hour, he confirmed the deal with AT&T was off. Yu had texted the South China Morning Post on Monday, verifying the partnership talks had collapsed and that Huawei was “harmed again.” He declined to comment further when approached after the presentation.

“I know today that many people are waiting for me to announce the partnership with carriers or operators, many of you have seen [in] the newspapers that something is happening,” he said in his presentation at CES, without naming AT&T. “Unfortunately this time [we] cannot sell this phone through a carrier channel, but we still want to sell it on the open market and e-commerce channels. It’s a big loss for us but also for the carriers, and even a bigger loss for consumers because they don’t have the best choice in the market.”

Collapse of Huawei deal with AT&T ‘will threaten China-US trade ties

The consumer business, which includes smartphones, accounted for about 35 per cent of Huawei’s total revenues compared with 56 per cent for the carrier business, according to the company’s latest annual report. China was its biggest market, with almost half of the sales, followed by Europe, Middle East and Africa at 30 per cent, and rest of Asia at 13 per cent. The Americas, which includes the US, took up 8.5 per cent of sales.

Watch: Gal Gadot, Huawei’s brand ambassador in the US, teaches the crowd at CES to pronounce the tech giant’s name: