Watch Paparazzi

Footballer Lionel Messi spotted wearing Huawei

In a sleek campaign image shot to support Huawei's Porsche Design product line, Lionel Messi is seen on his left wrist wearing the Porsche Design Huawei Watch 2 — the sportier, more tool-watch-oriented sibling of the original Porsche Design Huawei Watch that debuted at MWC 2017. The image pairs the watch with the Huawei Mate 9 Porsche Design smartphone, both finished in a coherent matte black and carbon aesthetic. Messi, who served as a global brand ambassador for Huawei from 2016 onwards, was a deliberate choice: his cross-cultural recognition and elite athletic profile aligned perfectly with Porsche Design's positioning at the intersection of performance engineering and luxury.

The Porsche Design Huawei Watch 2 runs Android Wear 2.0 (later upgradeable) on a Snapdragon Wear 2100 chipset, with a 1.2-inch AMOLED display protected by sapphire crystal — a specification point that nudges it firmly toward the premium end of the Android wearable segment. The case measures 45mm in stainless steel with a DLC (diamond-like carbon) coating, giving it the near-black appearance visible on Messi's wrist. The bezel is finished in black ceramic, machined to the same Porsche Design angular vocabulary seen on the brand's Chronograph 1 and Monobloc Actuator lines. A proprietary rubber strap with red accent stitching references Porsche's motorsport heritage without being overt about it.

From a collector standpoint, the Porsche Design Huawei Watch 2 occupies an unusual niche: it is not a mechanical watch and therefore sits outside traditional horological collecting circles, yet its design pedigree and limited commercial lifespan have made it a curiosity piece. Production was not vast, and the collaboration was not renewed beyond this generation, which gives it a certain finite quality collectors occasionally appreciate.

Messi's association with Huawei during this period was the brand's most high-profile Western celebrity partnership to date. The choice of the Porsche Design Watch 2 — rather than a conventional luxury mechanical piece — signals that this was a technology-forward image campaign, not a watch endorsement in the traditional sense.

On the secondary market, complete boxed examples trade at modest premiums over original retail given the discontinued collaboration status. Original retail was approximately $599 USD at launch, and grey-market prices have remained close to that figure, occasionally dipping below as smartwatch resale values erode with age.