Who needs Google, says Huawei
Chinese brand, cut off from US technology, is developing its own
● The competitive gap between Samsung and Huawei is no longer measured by sales, but by days.
Just 13 days after the Korean leader of the smartphone market launched the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip foldable phone, Huawei unveiled a Chinese competitor, the Mate Xs. Both are second-generation successors to 2019 folding-screen handsets, the Galaxy Fold and Mate X — also launched days apart in February last year.
Not since the days of Motorola and Nokia fighting for cellphone leadership during the 1990s have two major hi-tech brands been in such a lock-step contest.
Samsung appears to have the upper hand, having also launched its new standard flagship phones, the Galaxy S20 range, on February 11. Huawei is expected to lift the lid on its new P40 series at the end of March.
Samsung also has a price advantage, having slashed the cost of foldable technology, from R44,000 for the Fold to R29,999 for the Flip.
Huawei is so far only quoting a price in euros that will translate to well above R40,000.
But Samsung has a fight on its hands. The Mate Xs is a productivity powerhouse, with a 6.6-inch main screen on the front and 6.38inch secondary screen on the back folding out into an 8-inch tablet. The Flip opens up into a “standard” 6.7-inch display.
That means the Mate Xs is not only more versatile in terms of the functionality of each of its display options, but it also opens more possibilities on the unfolded display.
Mainly, it provides multi-tasking, which it calls “multi-window support”. This allows two apps to be opened side by side, with a third one “floating” on top, and allowing content to be dragged between the apps.
Functionality aside, however, the software on the Mate Xs represents a significant watershed in the history of the smartphone market.
Since Washington’s ban on US companies supplying technology to Huawei, announced by President Donald Trump in May last year, Huawei has scrambled to free its devices from reliance on Google Mobile Services (GMS), a collection of apps and interfaces that support functionality across devices.
It recently announced major upgrades to Huawei Mobile Services (HMS), its answer to GMS, and to its AppGallery, which competes directly with the Google Play Store.
The Huawei Mate 30, a large-format handset launched in September 2019, was the first Huawei smartphone without GMS, but failed to impress due to its limited ecosystem and market prospects.
The Mate Xs, on the other hand, draws a new line in the sand.
We have done extensive research to identify which applications are specifically popular with South Africans. Waze works perfectly on HMS Likun Zhao Vice-president for the Huawei Consumer Business Group, Middle East & Africa
It reveals that Huawei has invested massive effort in the development of HMS and the AppGallery, to the extent that one must look hard to find gaps in its offering. Most notably, work-arounds are needed for popular Google apps like Gmail, Maps and YouTube.
It uses an interface called EMUI 10, which runs on top of an open-source version of Android — meaning that no-one owns it and it can be adapted by anyone. As a globally developed operating system, the Android Open Source Project is not subject to US government sanctions. The phone therefore operates on Android 10, but uses HMS instead of GMS.
For developers, who used a software tool kit called GMS Core to build Android apps, HMS Core is now available.
This all adds up to the AppGallery instantly becoming the third-biggest app store in the world, after those of Google and Apple. It also suggests that the US ban may have backfired.
“HMS replaces GMS core entirely, providing developers with necessary tools to power their apps,” says Likun Zhao, vice-president for the Huawei Consumer Business Group in the Middle East & Africa.
“Huawei has also opened up its hardware resources so developers can have deep integration, thereby providing unique functionality using Huawei’s powerful hardware, such as artificial intelligence, camera, and sensors.”
Zhao told Business Times that Huawei was promoting local developers and applications to compete on a global scale.
“We have done extensive research to identify which applications are specifically popular with South Africans rather than just global. While Google Maps is indeed popular, in SA Waze has proven to be more popular and this works perfectly on HMS. We are also working on our own mapping solution to launch soon.”
In the immediate wake of the ban last year, Huawei sales in SA plummeted, but Zhao says they quickly recovered, and the brand is still aiming for market leadership.
“Huawei achieved strong revenue and sales growth in SA in 2019.
“Because of this issue, however, we have slightly readjusted our strategic goals for SA,” he says.
“We still plan to become no 1 in the South African mobile phone market in two to three years, but we are diversifying our offering a lot more in terms of providing an ecosystem of products and services that will continue to drive growth.”