Huawei Applied sciences Co. is closing in on a billion lively client units, underscoring how the U.S.-sanctioned firm is taking the battle to Apple Inc. within the pivotal Chinese language market.
There’re now some 900 million Huawei devices put in with its inhouse Concord working software program, up considerably from just some months in the past, client enterprise Chairman Richard Yu stated. Gross sales of premium Huawei smartphones climbed 72% within the first 5 months of 2024, he instructed attendees at an annual developer discussion board Friday.
These numbers illustrate the exceptional development Huawei’s telephones have loved because it unveiled the Mate 60 Professional, which contained a 7-nanometer processor that Washington officers didn’t suppose Chinese language corporations able to growing. Enterprise has boomed since, serving to Huawei greater than quintuple revenue throughout the March quarter and take market share from Apple and Chinese language rivals.
“No one can extinguish the starlight in the sky. Today, the future of HarmonyOS is set,” Yu instructed his viewers. “Let’s enjoy the brilliant galaxy that belongs to us.”
Huawei intends to launch a successor to its marquee smartphone, the Mate 70, on the finish of the 12 months, Yu stated. That’s more likely to run on HarmonyOS Subsequent, which can sever remaining ties to Google’s Android. Huawei plans to launch a beta model for shoppers round August, Yu stated.
Huawei has taken HarmonyOS past smartphones in previous years and into merchandise from watches to TVs. The Chinese language firm shipped about 11 million wearables within the first quarter, surpassing Samsung Electronics Co., in keeping with IDC. That helped Concord OS overtake Apple’s iOS in Chinese language market share throughout the January-March interval, in keeping with Counterpoint Analysis. The principle driver, nonetheless, remained the rising recognition of Huawei’s telephones, Counterpoint added.
Huawei is getting extra aggressive at making an attempt to revenue from HarmonyOS as its consumer base surge. It’s contemplating taking a reduce of in-app purchases, underscoring a rising confidence in competing with the iPhone—although there’s more likely to be a minimum of one notable exception, Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat.
It’s additionally making progress on the AI entrance with the Ascend GPU, a part of a rising portfolio of chips that prompted Nvidia Corp. Chief Government Jensen Huang to name Huawei a formidable rival.
Chinese language corporations together with Huawei are growing native alternate options to essentially the most highly effective AI accelerators that the likes of Nvidia make, which Washington has barred from the nation. That effort is taken into account key to Beijing’s broader ambitions of catching up with the U.S. in AI and chipmaking.
On Friday, Yu stated its Ascend processors are 1.1 occasions more practical in coaching AI fashions in contrast with mainstream choices, although he stopped wanting naming particular corporations. His firm has thus far arrange three AI knowledge facilities powered by Ascend chips in China, serving to native corporations develop and host synthetic intelligence companies.
