Huawei Technologies Co (華為) will from next year strip its smartphones and tablets of Google’s open-source Android and move devices to homegrown software, broadcasting its ambitions to pivot away from US technology.
The company’s new flagship phone, the Mate 70, will debut HarmonyOS Next, the iteration of its operating system that does away with remnants of Android in favor of entirely indigenous tech. Announced at a live-streamed event yesterday, the new devices fuel Huawei’s campaign to reclaim China’s premium tier from Apple Inc and build an ecosystem without the involvement of major US tech providers.
Available on Wednesday next week, the Mate 70 and its Pro variants are the followup to Huawei’s most significant device in years, the Mate 60.
Photo: Adek Berry, AFP
Last year’s edition, powered by a made-in-China processor, brought Huawei back into the smartphone industry limelight and signaled its ability to work around US trade curbs designed to cut it off from the most advanced chipmaking.
HarmonyOS Next will still need another two to three months to improve the user experience, but the plan is to henceforth use it on upcoming gadgets, said Richard Yu (余承東), chairman of Huawei’s consumer business group.
The Mate 70 series will offer 40 percent better performance than its predecessor, in part because of HarmonyOS Next, Yu said, falling short of disclosing details of the processors that power the phones.
Shenzhen-based Huawei is expected to use its latest in-house Kirin chip for the new product line, though its performance increase may be less significant than Qualcomm Inc and MediaTek Inc’s (聯發科) top-end offerings, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Charles Shum (沈明) and Sean Chen.
“That suggests the new Huawei phone may struggle to capture the attention of non-Huawei Android users,” they wrote.
Despite Washington’s blacklisting and technical challenges, Huawei managed to grow sales over the past seven quarters, with the help of an expanding smartphone business. Its shipments recorded four consecutive quarters of at least double-digit growth in China as of September, according to research firm International Data Corp.
Huawei yesterday also unveiled a number of other products including a new tablet and a gold-plated smartwatch. Earlier in the fall, the company introduced the world’s first trifold phone, also powered by chips that were designed in-house.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
RSS