Huawei is gearing up for the future, and it intends to go toe-to-toe with Apple. The Chinese tech giant’s upcoming flagship – now confirmed to be branded as the Mate 10 – is reportedly going to pack features that are better than the iPhone 8. Huawei is currently its home country’s number one smartphone vendor, but the company is aiming for worldwide domination.

Huawei is currently third best in the world when it comes to smartphones. But the company is confident enough to say that it will one day top giants Samsung and Apple. Huawei reportedly intends to ship between 140 million and 150 million handsets this year – an increase from last year’s 139 million – and the Shenzhen-based phone maker’s upcoming flagship phablet will have to carry the burden of that projection.

The Huawei Mate 10 is currently on the end stages of its development. It promises to be its maker’s best mobile device yet, and it launches around the time Apple unveils its tenth anniversary smartphone. According to Huawei’s consumer division boss Richard Yu, the new Mate series handset is better in a lot of ways compared to the highly anticipated iPhone 8.

“We will have an even more powerful product,” Yu said. “The Mate 10 has much longer battery life with a full-screen display, quicker changing speed, better photographing capability and many other features that will help us compete with Apple.”

This almost confirms the recent rumours about the upcoming handset’s edge-to-edge and borderline bezel-less look, which has been this year’s most popular external feature when it comes to high-end smartphones. Unfortunately for the fans of Huawei’s more affordable mobile devices, the company is set on developing only mid-range and premium smartphones in the future. The entry-level handsets will be dropped as Huawei sets its eyes on expanding its global market hold on developed regions.

“We are giving up the very low-end devices because the margin in this is extremely low, and it’s not making enough profit for us,” according to Yu. “The priority is Europe, China and Japan, where the economy is healthy and people are able to consume them.”

Huawei is still its home country’s best smartphone brand thanks to over 23 million unit shipments between April and June, topping the Chinese market for the second straight quarter. Apple has been bumped off the fourth spot by surging Xiaomi, and the California-based iPhone maker is slowly losing its hold on the market alongside chief competitor Samsung (see related story below).

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