Huawei looks to upstage Apple with product launch just hours after expected iPhone 16 unveiling

Huawei said Monday it plans to hold a product launch event this month just hours after Apple's annual iPhone reveal as the Chinese technology giant looks to upstage its U.S. rival.

The event will take place on Sept. 10 at 2:30 p.m. Beijing time, Huawei said in a post on Chinese X-like service Weibo on Monday.

That timing would be late evening on Sept. 9 on the west coast of the U.S., where Apple's event is set to take place.

Apple is expected to unveil its iPhone 16 lineup on the morning of Sept. 9 at its event which features the tagline "It's Glowtime".

It's unclear what Huawei plans to launch at its event. Richard Yu, who heads up Huawei's consumer and automotive technology group, said the company's "leading, innovative, and disruptive product is here," according to a Google translation of his Weibo post on Monday.

"This is an epoch-making product that others have thought of but cannot make," Yu said.

The executive added that after five years of investment, Huawei has "turned science fiction into reality."

Huawei was once the biggest smartphone player in the world but its handset business was crippled by U.S. sanctions that cut it off from access to the latest semiconductors.

Last year, the Shenzhen-headquartered tech firm released a new phone that contained a fairly advance chip, surprising policymakers in Washington and the tech world. Huawei launched another smartphone this year.

Huawei's resurgence has challenged Apple in China. The iPhone maker lost its place among the top five smartphone vendors by market share in China in the second quarter of the year, according to research from Canalys. Huawei meanwhile saw second-quarter smartphone shipments in China rise 41% year-on-year, the fastest among the top five brands.