Huawei Technologies announced significant advancements and major strides in its operating systems and artificial intelligence at a developer conference in Dongguan, China. Richard Yu, the head of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group, also noted the further advancement of the company’s own operating system, HarmonyOS.
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“Harmony has made major breakthroughs. You can say in 10 years we’ve achieved what it took our European and American counterparts more than 30 years to do, in terms of building the core technology of an independent operating system.”
Yu
HarmonyOS surges to 900 Million devices in five years
HarmonyOS, which was unveiled in 2019 after the United States banned Huawei from using Google’s Android OS, has been installed on more than 900 million devices. This shows the increasing dominance of the operating system and the company’s capital in maneuvering around geopolitical shifts.
Operating systems have become formidable competitors in the OS market, particularly in China. Canalys analysts estimate that HarmonyOS was the second most widely used mobile operating system in China in the first quarter of 2024, with a 17% market share, ahead of iOS. This situation, therefore, puts Huawei in a very strategic place, and this breaks the dominance system that has been between Google Android and Apple IOS in the Middle East and Africa.
Huawei advances in artificial intelligence
Huawei has also emphasized artificial intelligence as a strategic approach in its growth plan. Its Ascend AI hardware is now the second most used in the world after Nvidia. Huawei has developed the ability to use AI across all its devices through its products’ hardware and software, thanks to the company’s R&D.
According to Canalys, the market share of AI-powered smartphones will be 9% in 2024 and will reach 54% by 2028. Huawei’s investment in AI is reflected by its research and development expenditure in 2023, accounting for 23.4% of its total revenue.
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The next version of HarmonyOS NEXT which is planned to be released later this year will enhance the integration of AI on the system level while most other operating systems now only have application-level AI. This new OS will not be supporting the Android application suggesting a major shift towards the development of an entirely new ecosystem.
Huawei reports strong financials and achieves $99.4B in revenue
Huawei announced total revenues of $99. 448 billion for the year 2023. This is manifested in the various products that the company offers, such as wearable bands, smart personal audio devices, tablets, and notebooks, all of which enable the firm to pursue the concept of understanding the user’s behavior. This diverse product portfolio increases the company’s chances of providing unique and customized AI services to its clients.
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Chinese research firm Counterpoint said that Huawei’s HarmonyOS outplayed Apple’s iOS in Q1 2024 to become the second most used operating system in China after Android with 17% of the market
This news comes as OPPO has laid down a plan to embed generative AI in all its smartphones. This is a major shift within the smartphone market and states OPPO as a key player in the development of AI technologies within mobile devices.
Cryptopolitan Reporting by Brenda Kanana
