Huawei Announced the availability of Mate 9 Pro in Finland and Sweden on 22. November.

In a a earlier blog post we described the launch of the Mate 9 and Mate 9 Porsche Design. The devices were launched 3rd of November in Germany. For many customers the curved screen Porsche Design was the most interesting of the two but pricing and availability was a clear issue.

Huawei obviously saw an opportunity here to grab some of that lost Note 7 customerbase from Samsung and decided to reveal yet another member to the Mate 9 family.

The Mate 9 Pro was announced on November 14th at Huawei's press conference held in Shanghai. 

The "Pro" features the same 5.5-inch curved Quad HD AMOLED display used in the Porsche Design Mate 9, and the same Kirin 960 processor, 4,000mAh battery and 20MP+12MP Leica camera setup. So basically the Huawei Mate 9 Pro is a Porsche Design Mate 9 without the Porsche branding and aesthetics.

However, there are two new storage and RAM configurations for the Mate 9 Pro. Following in the footsteps of regular Mate 9 but with slightly increased pricetags. The price is set at 4699 yuan ($686) for the 4GB+64GB flavor, which is about $110 more expensive than the regular Mate 9 with same storage. Mate 9 Pro with 6GB RAM + 128GB storage costs 5299 yuan ($775), once again $110 up from the Mate 9 with similar option. During the conference it was not obvious that the devices would ever see other markets outside China. 

Huawei held an opening event for their new Service Center in Helsinki, Finland, on the 22nd of November where they announced plans to expand research and development activities in Finland. During the event Huawei announced that Mate 9 Pro will come available outside China, in Finland.  Simultaneously with The Finland event Huawei held another event in Sweden where availability for Swedish market was also announced.

The device will only come with one size variant the  6GB + 128GB version. Price will be €849 (US$895) and 7990kr (US$863) in Sweden, shipments will begin end of December. Finland and Sweden mark the first countries outside China to have access to this new flagship.

The expansion of markets to Finland and Sweden may indicate improved availability of curved AMOLED displays  and also that Huawei may plan to gradually expand the availability of the Mate 9 Pro to other countries as well. A wise move that might make some Galaxy Note 7 customers to switch to Huawei. The device clearly shows that Huawei is serious with its push to the premium segment challenging Samsung and its extremely successful Galaxy S-series and Note-series.