The spillover effect of the US-China trade war has compelled one company to change its strategy, and stop relying on partners from the US.
Huawei is often criticised for supposedly being the mouthpiece of the Chinese government, but the company is a conglomerate that makes products and offers services across varied sectors.
This is why, when Google’s support to Huawei and Honor (and its devices) were cut off, the Chinese brand decided to take matters into its own hands, and build an ecosystem that doesn’t rely on external factors or resources. For this, the company is making a platform that runs on Android but doesn’t support any of the popular Google apps.
It claims to have been working on its ecosystem for a while, and now it is eyeing the Indian market, where it is hopeful of getting the Google faithful on board without having the top 5 apps on its side.
The company was hosting its first developer day event in the country a few days back, and I was curious to see how the app makers perceive the brand and its non-Google affiliation.
To get more people on board its program, the company was offering free of cost entry for the event, which ensured maximum participation and awareness without having to invest in it from day zero. It’s essential that developers sign up with Huawei/Honor and its promise of delivering a Google-less Android but the challenge is big, and the company’s top honchos recognise the task at hand.
“It is a big challenge to convince developers about our platform but in China, we have our app gallery, from where people can download apps. If we can launch product with Google Mobile Service, it’s ok. If not, we’ll shift our focus to Huawei Mobile Service (over Android Open Source Project or AOSP) and provide users with best experience.”Charles Peng, CEO, Consumer Business Group, Honor and Huawei India
Charles realises that bringing HMS into the mainstream will take time, which means he is unwilling to put a forecast on how quickly HMS could become available across the globe. Huawei claims it has a userbase of 500 million, surely that’s a big enough number to start off with?
India Focus Without Google
So, how will Huawei work its way through over 500 million smartphone users in India, when they’re still missing top-ranking apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, and YouTube among others. After all, you’ve got more than a billion active users in the country, using the aforementioned platforms on a daily basis.
Charles suggests using the web-version is one but a very inconvenient option. But he also pointed out an interesting idea that Huawei might look to invest in.
“We can work with developers to make local products, that we believe, could become alternative to Facebook-centric products.”Charles Peng, CEO, Consumer Business Group, Honor and Huawei India
We’ll be eager to see if Huawei (with all its resources) can manage to pull this off, when no major Indian entity has been able to replicate success of its US or Chinese peers.
It goes without saying that the Indian market is all about localising, and for this, Huawei will focus on Hindi as its language integration for the country in the initial phase, and gradually add support for other languages.
“We’ll have Hindi support by July 2020 and that is our core focus as of now. We will work together with developers to make sure more languages get support at the earliest. We will gather inputs and language request from the developers and start working on them.”Charles Peng, CEO, Consumer Business Group, Honor and Huawei India
He also made a strong case for other big developers to join its rank and claims to be in talks with 150 mobile app developers in the country. In the meanwhile, top apps like Truecaller, Paytm and Gaana are already part of the Huawei app gallery, he adds.
All this will be made available through Honor and Huawei phones running on HMS from Q2 2020 onwards, the company confirmed.
More importantly, Charles mentioned that all the data processed through Huawei/Honor devices will be stored locally (in data centers) within the country, thereby following all the local laws. But he didn’t give a timeline for its completion.
Giving Developers Free Hand
It was hardly surprising to see Huawei using the ‘free’ mantra as it looks to entice developers and encourage them to cater to their app store for mobile users. To make this happen, the Huawei Maps Service kit (Google Maps rival) will be free for one year, and even its machine learning kit (scan QR code, text to speech APIs) will be available for free.
The company has also made sure apps on HMS are as identical (in technical terms) to Google’s version of apps as possible. So, if you’ve already got apps running on Android, Charles says, “some GMS kits will take only a few minutes to work on HMS app standards.”
However, that’s not the only highlighting benefit for the developers.
Developers pay to Google (15 percent), but Huawei is not seeking margins (revenue-share) from developers right now.Charles Peng, CEO, Consumer Business Group, Honor and Huawei India
He did mention the ‘free of margin’ factor won’t be there in the long run, giving developers a short period of time to sign up with the company. In addition to this, developers will be offered incentive plans, which will be issued from early next year. Through this, Huawei promises monetary and promotional support (up to $5,000) for apps published on HMS.
Local developers who spoke to The Quint, believe that Huawei’s focus is right and they are willing to work with the company, as long as they can work on other platforms simultaneously. This gives them the chance to try something new, and don’t have to share the app revenue with others.
All of this sounds intriguing but eventually, it comes down to the company’s focus on making the consumer understand its mission and tell them how Android without Google is doable and effective at the same time.
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