When we got an exclusive interview with Huawei’s consumer division’s European business boss at the Mate Xs 2 launch, the first question that burned our lips was obviously “Will Huawei stop making phones?” ? “. The question is legitimate. In 2018, Huawei is at the height of its glory and has supplanted Samsung as the world number 1 in the sector. Then, the American administration of Donald Trump started a real economic war, a “Huawei Gate”.
And four years later, the brand is no longer even in the top 5 worldwide, or even in China! Deprived of TSMC factories to produce its chips, deprived of Googles Mobile Services (GMS), and therefore of a large number of applications, services and technologies (American DRM for Netflix, for example), the brand has seen its shares of market to melt to disappear almost everywhere. She was also forced to sell Honor so as not to destroy all her activities. So what is the point of continuing to invest so much to produce less than a tenth of the volumes of yesteryear? Will the brand throw in the towel?
” We are not going to abandon our smartphone business “says William Tian.
An energetic 50-year-old with a determined look and verb, the head of the consumer products division in Europe does not want to leave any doubt. He assures that Huawei will “ pursue its efforts to continue to lead the industry through our innovations “.
Sheltering under the colossal investments of Huawei in R&D – with 17 billion dollars annually, the Chinese is the second largest investor in the world, just behind Alphabet –, William Tian refutes any idea of a drop in intensity.
” You will continue to see new terminals released throughout the year. And business is picking up: the Mate Xs 2 is already sold out in China, as demand has exceeded our expectations “.
If the assertion is made on the basis of a terminal at 2,000 euros (whose initial volume must have been quite limited) and on its domestic market, William Tian seems confident.
“ Huawei invests 20% of its turnover in R&D and smartphones are a market that remains key for us “, he hammers.
Harmony OS: (re)construction of a software ecosystem
Chinese juggernaut, Huawei can afford to play for a long time. Its enormous R&D, its dimensions, its internal market and its many and varied businesses – the champion is accelerating in IT and launching into printing – mean that the smartphone division can count on other products to maintain itself. In particular thanks to the software ecosystem.
Since the loss of Android and GMS, Huawei has been developing its Harmony OS ecosystem. More an environment than a monolithic OS – obviously the bricks are different between smartphones, watches and TVs – it’s about Huawei rebuilding everything that Google has taken over. But this time, with the assurance that the software bricks are under his control.
All while trying to keep routes always open to Android just in case. So the store from Huawei continues to expand native and interoperable applications with Android: the Germans from Komoot, the flagship application for cyclists and other hikers, have announced their arrival on AppGallery.
” We work every day to keep bringing new apps to our store,” explains William Tian.
” It’s a time-consuming process and we don’t have a roadmap to share, but we’re working hard on it. “.
Deprived of 5G and Google, Huawei must adapt
Investing in an alternative ecosystem to that. from Google could suggest that Huawei never wants to deal with Google again. It seems that it is nothing.
Without ever naming Google openly, William Tian assures us that “ Huawei is an open brand: we will always try to cooperate with other players “.
A way of saying that the ball is in the court of Google – or rather the US State Department – for the possible resumption of business.
Ditto for 5G and access to factories: deprived of the possibility of producing its chips – while Huawei was the first player in the world to integrate a 5G modem into a SoC! – and being limited to buying 4G chips from Americans, Huawei can only wait for the goodwill of Uncle Sam.
According to a source who wished to remain anonymous, access to 5G chips could be resolved by the end of the year. But for Google, it seems more complicatedé”.
This return of 5G would clearly be a breath of fresh air at least in the official speech of the company. Because when asked about the disappearance of a flagship technology of which Huawei is one of the greatest champions and was one of the greatest promoters, William Tian is forced to kick into touch.
Raising the presence from Wi-Fi 6E » and the fact that « normal consumers do not ask for particular components, but seek satisfactory uses and levels of performance “.
In this area, it is obvious that the Huawei executive is walking on eggshells.
Show white paw
One of the “injustices” of Huawei’s ban is that the company is a good student of respect for local rules, more in any case than other Chinese brands.
A former Huawei Chinese executive who has since moved on to the competition told us recently at an event that ” Beside Huawei, other Chinese brands don’t have the same legal department. The status of ” target “ of Huawei requires them to be squarer than other companies “.
A state of affairs that can be seen both in structure and behind the scenes. Huawei is the only player to have GDPR-certified European servers (in Ireland) which guarantee the collection and processing of data only in Europe. The company is also the only one in the segment to have signed contracts relating to the European anti-corruption framework – the only brands to have had the author of its lines sign such a document are IBM, Qualcomm and Panasonic, all in 15 years of career !
The smartphone, the mandatory technological hub?
An interesting parallel with Huawei’s smartphone division, which weighs less and less but remains in the catalog, is obviously that of Sony’s Xperia. A division whose sales are more than modest – Xperia is not even in the world’s top 10 – and very far from even Huawei’s figures. But that Sony considers necessary as much for the image (the company focuses on the high and very high end) as for R&D (understanding the needs of its customers to whom Sony sells its image sensors), or the intricacy of the smartphone in a product environment (televisions, cameras, video cameras, etc.).
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” At Huawei, we have identified five pillars of innovation: connectivity, cloud, AI, computing and application development.
It’s not just for pros, it’s for everyone. In these five environments, the smartphone has its place and our latest generations of terminals are increasingly perceived by the public. », professes William Tian. With to go one last time ” so we won’t give up smartphones “.