HUAWEI Watch 3 is confirmed, but we’ll have to wait a while

Any hopes of Huawei announcing the HUAWEI Watch 2 follow-up before the end of Mobile World Congress 2018 are now dashed. Richard Yu, CEO of the company, informed TechRadar that while the HUAWEI Watch 3 is in development, it won’t see a release anytime soon. The reason? The HUAWEI Watch 2 is selling well enough that a new model isn’t necessary.

“It will come later – there’s no hurry because HUAWEI Watch 2 sells well. We’re not in a hurry, so we’re launching the new watch later,” Mr. Yu said.

HUAWEI announced the Watch 2 last year at Mobile World Congress 2017, so it seemed logical to expect a successor this year. Instead, HUAWEI chose to announce its next flagship smartphone at its own event in Paris next month and used MWC 2018 to launch the MateBook X Pro and the new entries in the MediaPad 5 series.

Since the Watch 2 is selling well and the Paris event in March seems to be all about the upcoming HUAWEI P20, it’s unlikely that we’d see the HUAWEI Watch 3 until the second half of the year, possibly at IFA in September. Or, if the Watch 2 is still selling well, maybe not even until 2019.

The HUAWEI Watch 2 received favorable reviews, including from Android Authority, but it was dinged on its “sporty” design and cheap-feeling watch strap. Hopefully, the Watch 3 will address these issues; although if the Watch 2 indeed is selling well over a year after launch, HUAWEI may not change the formula up at all.

Since the launch of the P20 is generating quite a lot of buzz for HUAWEI, we probably won’t hear much else about this new watch until after that event.