Thursday, September 19, 2019

Huawei CEO addresses Mate 30’s limitations following event

Huawei’s Mate 30 Pro was announced with much fanfare. An innovative camera system, improved displays, and evolving charging technologies show Huawei is still at the top of its game.
               
It was even surprising to many that Huawei would hold a launch event at all since the US-Huawei ban has barred Huawei from shipping the new flagship with Google services.

That didn’t stop Huawei - it stuck to its guns and announced the phone with or without Google’s support. Interestingly, Huawei has not yet revealed European availability for the Mate devices but still revealed retail pricing in Euros



. Huawei will gradually release the Mate series on a market-by-market basis, but Yu doesn’t reveal any specific markets.


Huawei Mate 30

In an interview with the press, Richard Yu addressed some of the concerns about how the Mate 30 will launch without Google services. When asked about availability, Yu confirmed that Asia will be the first markets to get the phones. Yu explained that customers in Asian and Middle Eastern markets will still buy the phones without Google services because the device is so great. He also mentioned that carriers will still sell the devices, even with these limitations.


When asked about Google services, Yu replies that “There are also a lot of third-party apps and places where you can download any app”. Indirectly, he was saying that you could technically sideload Google services on the device, but for obvious reasons, Huawei can’t preinstall them.

Users will still be able to download apps, but they just won’t officially come from the Play Store, but rather, from Huawei’s alternative App Gallery. “That’s not good for Google,” explains Yu. “…we’ve contributed a lot to many US companies.”

In order to “encourage the developers to work with Huawei”, developers get to keep 85% of revenues when they published their apps on Huawei’s App Gallery. “We have no other choice… we were forced to do this… companies, partners, carriers also understand us.”

 the situation were to change overnight, Huawei could potentially bring back all Google services to affected markets as easily as sending an OTA update to devices but given the ongoing China-US trade war between governments, it remains uncertain when that may be.


Meanwhile, Huawei sales are doing well in China as phones made specifically for China don’t need Google service anyhow. Yu says everyone loves the phone with the best camera, best performance, best design, and best 5G.

Although 5G still isn’t widely available in many Western markets, China is well ahead of the race with 5G available throughout most of the country. Looking to next year, Huawei plans to launch midrange devices with 5G support so more consumers can benefit from the new technology.








Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Huawei proffers $1.5bn in bid to lure software developers

             


Chinese group ramps up recruiting and offers up 5G tech to counter US sanctions

Chinese technology group Huawei is spending $1.5bn to recruit software developers for its computing platforms and offering to share 5G technology, as it seeks new partners in the face of US sanctions that cut it off from suppliers including Google. 

Huawei’s search for more developers is made urgent by the fact that its new series of smartphones, to be launched later this week, will not have licensed access to Google’s apps.

As part of its outreach Huawei has also offered to sell its 5G technology to foreign companies — a move that rotating chief executive Ken Hu on Wednesday said was meant to “lessen people’s security concerns”.

The US government views Huawei as a potential spy on behalf of the Chinese government, an allegation the company denies. Washington has put Huawei on a blacklist that has largely blocked US suppliers from selling to the company, and has lobbied US allies to cut the company out of their 5G mobile networks.

Last week, in interviews with the New York Times and The Economist, Huawei’s founder Ren Zhengfei said the company had offered to license its 5G technology to foreign companies that could then manufacture 5G telecoms equipment and install it in networks outside of China, competing with Huawei abroad.

Such a proposal would “make the international 5G supply chain more competitive, and would certainly benefit consumers”, Mr Hu said at the telecoms company’s annual conference in Shanghai.

He said Huawei had won over 50 5G contracts globally, and that although the new ones did not feed through to increased sales this year, he expected a revenue bump next year when 5G is expected to roll out on a commercial scale in China.

Despite being cut off from US suppliers that provide the company with crucial chips for its smartphones and telecoms equipment, Huawei’s self-reported sales increased 23 per cent in the first half of the year. 

But pressure on the company to resolve the US sanctions issue is growing, because new smartphones — such as the Mate 30 series, due out later this week — will not have access to Google’s licensed apps under the current US Entity List restrictions.

Whether Huawei could continue to use Google’s apps has been up in the air since the Entity List came into effect in May.

Google is one of a large number of US suppliers that have been waiting months for a result on their applications for exemptions to the ban. President Donald Trump promised in July that the applications would be processed quickly, but none has yet been granted.

For Huawei, the worst-case scenario for its international customers already accustomed to the Google app ecosystem would be having to give up Google’s apps, such as the Play app store. Analysts expect the Mate 30 series to ship with an open-source version of Google’s Android operating system without Google apps pre-installed.

Huawei is also preparing its own version of Android, called HarmonyOS, although admits it will be difficult to build a new ecosystem and that it will need to convince developers to write apps for its new operating system.

The company will spend $1.5bn to expand its pool of 1.3m existing partners in its “Fertile Soil” developer program — launched in 2015 with a $1bn payout — to 5m, Mr Hu said.

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