(Yicai) Sept. 14 -- Hourly workers of Chinese contract manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry, better known as Foxconn, are paid more to produce Huawei Technologies smartphone products than those making Apple's iPhones, Yicai learned from recruiting agencies.

Workers from the ACKN department of Foxconn Longhua Technology Park, which received orders from Huawei, are paid CNY26 (USD3.57) per hour, while those from the iDPBG department of Shenzhen Foxconn Longhua Plant, which produced iPhones, are paid CNY21, human resource agents told Yicai. The ACKN department is the one with the highest wages of Foxconn.

Despite the pay gap, all positions at the iDPBG department have been filled, some of the agents noted. Zhengzhou Foxconn has also stopped looking for new workers, according to the Foxconn unit operating the Taiwan-based company's largest iPhone production base.

Huawei is going all out to win consumers in the terminal sales market. Yicai learned from several smartphone stores in Shenzhen that Apple's new prototype is not yet on sale, while Huawei's new prototype has already hit the market, attracting many consumers to check out the phone.

Huawei's new phone series, the Mate 60, will be available only next month, but consumers can place orders since last week, according to some store employees. But Apple's sales peak will already start next week, as the new iPhone 15 was unveiled yesterday.

"Hong Kong's mobile phone channels are preparing for the peak season before Christmas," said Francis Fong, honorary president of the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation. "Apple will occupy a large part of the market, but we will also leave room for Huawei."

Apple's pricing of its new iPhone series also shows the competition between the two mobile phone brands, Fong added.

Huawei's new mobile phone is still out of stock. Yicai learned from Huawei stores that the X3, the previous generation of Huawei's latest folding screen phone X5, is also out of stock, and consumers need to make reservations and wait for delivery.

A distributor in Guangdong province's county-level market said that many of Huawei's models cannot meet the demand due to a limited supply.

Huawei's sales and ranking among competitors will improve from last year if the company can ensure the supply, but it will hardly perform well in the fourth quarter, said Ivan Lam, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research. If there is no supply problem, Huawei will sell more than six million Mate 60 Pro, he added.

Sales of the Huawei Mate 60 series exceeded expectations, so Huawei will raise its mobile phone shipment target to 40 million units this year, media recently reported, citing someone close to Huawei. Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst at TF International Securities, updated his prediction for Huawei's smartphone shipments to reach 60 million units next year.

However, Huawei's phone shipments are still far behind the peak of over 200 million units in 2019. In the first half, Apple accounted for 67 percent of the Chinese market of mobile phones priced above USD600, while Huawei took up only 15.6 percent, according to International Data Corporation.

Apple is expected to achieve a share of 30 percent to 40 percent of the market of mobile phones priced between USD600 and USD800, while Huawei 20 percent to 40 percent, said Lam. For the segment of phones priced above USD800, Apple will likely seize a market share of 60 percent to 70 percent, while Huawei only about 10 percent.

Editor: Futura Costaglione