Huawei is focusing on software, it seems, as its chief says that the company wants to “lead the world” in this domain. This is something that Ren Zhengfei said to its employees, reports Reuters.
This is Huawei’s way to negate US sanctions, in a way. The US ban basically crippled Huawei’s hardware business, preventing it to develop its SoC, had a huge effect on its smartphone business, and so on.
Huawei chief says the company is putting great focus on software
Huawei chief said that the company is focusing on software because it is “outside of U.S. control”, and will provide the company “greater independence and autonomy”.
Harmony OS was mentioned by name, as Huawei will present it on June 2. Harmony OS was announced a long time ago, but only in name, and some basic details. The full presentation will take place on June 2.
The Trump administration put Huawei on an export blacklist back in 2019, and things only went downhill from there. Huawei lost a lot of its market share in the smartphone world since then, so the company is looking for ways to progress.
Donald Trump is no longer the president of the US, but the Biden administration did not give any indication that it aims to reverse the aforementioned actions. Huawei is still banned.
The part of that ban has prevented Google to offer its software to Huawei. Huawei is not allowed to pre-install Google services on its devices, which had a major effect on the company’s smartphones.
Huawei is shifting away from handset hardware
The company’s chief also hinted at a shift away from handset hardware because of all this. The company will also invest more than $1 billion this year in its intelligent driving business.
Huawei is a huge company, and it knows what it’s doing. This is a challenging path for anyone, though, and a huge change. It remains to be seen what will happen in the next couple of years. Harmony OS is coming really soon, so we’ll find out more about what the company built.