It’s a new year and the previous one was a tough one for a number of big tech companies including Meta, Twitter, and of course, the Chinese giant, Huawei, which is still suffering heavily from the sanction it got from the US government back in 2019.
The company is unable to release a 5G smartphone under its own brand name – even its high-end flagship devices faced this reality.
Skipping the release of the P60 series was due to many reasons among which include chip shortage and issues with the supply chain.
Although Huawei is still able to work with Qualcomm, it had to drop its own HiSilicon Kirin chipset in favor of Qualcomm’s snapdragon 6nm 4G chipsets on its high-end flagships such as the Mate 50 series.
Being unable to work with the giant chip maker TSMC, Huawei has been unable to create its own HiSilicon Kirin chipset.
Although it seems the company is having it really hard, especially in the international smartphone market, it’s still doing quite well in its local market where services such as Google Mobile Service or GMS aren’t required, hence, the Huawei Mobile Service or HMS became a perfect substitute.
International smartphones still come bundled with Android-based EMUI operating systems while locally-marketed devices often sport the HarmonyOS variant which the company crafted from scratch to replace its dependence on Android OS.
In its attempt to further lessen its dependence, the company soon created its own app store, map service, music, and video streaming services, email service, AI virtual assistant, and so much more.
Huawei’s ecosystem seems to be teaming up with all the essentials you’d expect. The HarmonyOS is a cross-platform system that works on all devices that Huawei makes; even cars.
There are Huawei smartwatches, Huawei smart home hubs running its proprietary Celia virtual assistant, Huawei smartphones, laptops, tablets, Huawei smart TVs, and even Huawei cars.
I want to believe if the brand is able to re-establish itself in the international market, it could easily rival Apple with the whole “ecosystem” shenanigans that Apple fans are often fond of.
While Huawei’s hardware may have faced a toughened couple of years prior to 2023, the company seems to be on the right path to becoming more self-sustaining and reliable.
Maybe I’m being sentimental as a former Huawei fanboy, but I’d say the company treated its customers very nicely. You get periodic software updates on your devices, and you get strong battery life, thanks to the heavily-modified EMUI operating system that is tailored for efficiency.
I want to believe the future is bright for the company if they’re able to re-establish its brand as it previously was – reliable, efficient, affordable, and secure.
Its existing plethora of smart devices is definitely going to help the company stand out in the near future when it regains all its lost glory – hopefully – while being the third rival next to Android and iOS-based platforms.