TechNews Editor Art Samaniego Jr and Huawei CEO of Consumer Business Group Richard Yu.
Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei's Consumer Business Group has a reputation of telling the truth as it is, he is known to be the company's "no-BS-guy" when answering questions. He is every reporter’s dream interviewee as he is always ready to give you a headline-grabbing quotes and if you need a sound bite just go to him and you would not be disappointed.
When the Mate 10 was launch in 2017, I asked him how long does it take for a phone to come to life, that is from conceptualization up to the actual product.
He replied, “about 11 months”, I then jokingly said: “do you mean the Mate 20 project is now on-going?” and to my surprise, he said: “yes of course”. I then tried to squeeze additional information from him and asked what would be the new features of this upcoming device.
I could not forget the face of then Huawei New Zealand head for communications Louie Hu when Richard Yu answered: “it would have a lot of surprises, we will add one more camera, also it would have a wireless charging, not ordinary wireless charging but faster wireless charging, also Face ID will be implemented, and a lot more new features, so wait for it.” Louie politely requested me to hold that information from his boss and said that future products could still change, being good friends that we are, of course I agreed.
Twelve months later, the Mate 20 was announced with all those features plus more.
Just recently, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, I got a rare chance of having Richard Yu personally showing me the capabilities of the company’s first foldable device — the Huawei Mate X.
I told him that the Huawei Mate X is the best foldable phone at the Mobile World Congress but it is very expensive and it looks like only Huawei executives will have the chance use it in the near future.
He laughed and said:
"Today we will talk about Technology, cost is irrelevant. What we are showing you is that we could produce this kind of technology. Remember, this is just the first commercial unit. Just wait for more surprises from Huawei."
I tried my luck and asked him, what would be the features of the next Huawei foldable phone?
As usual, he did not disappoint. He said that a new 5G Mate 20X is coming and then he talked about mind-blowing features that could be present in the next iteration of the Huawei device.
But Louie Hu the newly promoted Marketing Manager for Asia Pacific Region was there and before he could say anything, I told him let’s grab some beer.