The collapse of the battle between the US and Huawei will reshape the smartphone industry this year – and China could well have more influence than ever before. The downside risks from America listing one of the world’s largest smartphone makers is now becoming much more dangerous and far more real.
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Now it’s interesting. It is not surprising that the lobbying and peacock politics going under full stop while the world waits to see where the new Biden administration lands on Huawei. This battle came as a symbol of the tech war between Trump and Beijing. Now the Biden team needs to put the differences between restrictions aimed at securing security on the sale of 5G equipment and a punitive stranglehold on the consumer smartphone industry.
Cruz wants Biden’s team to “pledge to keep Huawei’s Chinese Communist Party’s spying activity on the Unity List,” and is holding up Senate Gina Raimondo’s nomination for Trade Secretary until these promises are forthcoming. And the administration is new making it clear that the national security concerns remain and so the restrictions remain. But it’s not that simple.
The challenge for Biden is that it is difficult to determine Huawei ‘s blacklist level for security reasons alone – it was linked to broader trade negotiations and technical stance, far beyond the 5G concerns prompted by U.S. action. If American house style is now measured less, less emotionally, less theater, this debate will be viewed in a different way. Which brings us back to the pressing question for Huawei – where is the security risk in people all over the world using Google apps on a smartphone?
Even on the 5G side, where there is a case to be made for national security interests regarding the purchase of emergency infrastructure from a private Chinese entity, the SolarWinds debacle paints a brutal reality for the West. Hiding backdoors in Huawei’s kitchen is too obvious – it basically comes to you through the front door. It is clearly better for a national supply chain state to endanger someone else, to make sure you do not see the threat coming.
Ironically, Huawei device is reportedly also vulnerable to such compromise, say the experts, not because it is Chinese but because there are holes in the security and quality of construction. This is the consistent discovery, year after year, from Huawei’s assessment center set up under the auspices of the UK spying group GCHQ to monitor Huawei’s place in the country. The infamous U-turn that eventually banned Huawei from the UK 5G network came because the US, overly restrictive restrictions restricting Huawei’s supply chain, increased this type of risk.
There is another feature here, of course. Huawei was a major export champion in China. The first big tech player to go head-to-head with western champions in their own backyard and win, to compete on a level playing field. Huawei cleared a route for TikTok to take over the west, and the likes of Xiaomi and Vivo and Oppo are now going up significantly as Huawei proved that this was possible and showed them the way.
As I said before, Huawei has changed the dynamics of the global smartphone market – that has not returned just because Huawei ‘s own sales have fallen. Apple and Samsung (and Google) are at high risk from high quality for less of a strategy that Huawei has achieved in key export markets, which its Chinese counterparts now follow without it. Huawei has become the second largest smartphone maker in the world, even gaining the top spot for a while. The others want to do the same.
Which brings us to the latest threat to the established smartphone packaging order – Honor. Huawei’s old young brand once focused on cheaper phones, but after being removed due to the blacklist, it’s free to resemble Huawei’s supply chain of manufacturers chip and software developers, and embark on the same kind of “new Huawei” fueling strategy. stellar growth for Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo. Huawei won’t say this, but Honor has a clear browser. If it worked, then a broader break, shifting Huawei smartphones to independent hands, could be inevitable.
All of this proved to Honor that it continues Huawei ‘s “1 + 8 + n” IoT strategy to its utter surprise. It will be equally surprising if Honor accepts Huawei’s Harmony Open option instead of Android for the same reason. Harmony is at the heart of 1 + 8 + n after all. Honor will focus on a smartphone-based dashboard, slashing away at Apple and Samsung, for the same reason that Huawei took that approach and that Oppo and Vivo followed suit.
Xiaomi and Oppo now own about 13% of global vessels – each, both could surpass Apple in 2021. Oppo is also part of the Chinese conglomerate BBK, which owns Vivo, RealMe and OnePlus in its stable. BBK can easily overtake Samsung.
The company has rejected suggestions that Huawei will launch its favorite Mate and P-series phones – but they are unlikely to confirm anything in advance. And, in reality, nothing is likely to happen until the weather in Washington marks in one direction or the other. Plan A is still a turn of fortune.
That said, there has been a very significant bug in the breeze for Huawei, with the early reports of disappointment about the reality behind the HarmonyOS marketing rush. After jumping through security loops to catch a development notification, reports suggest that it’s little more than an open Android build with Huawei ‘s front-end series. That is not what the marketing promised.
“HarmonyOS takes advantage of a large number of third-party open source resources,” a Huawei spokesperson told me in response, to accelerate the development of a complete architecture. While some UI elements from EMUI 11 are retained in the custom developer beta, HarmonyOS will launch with a modern UI along with the upcoming smartphones. ”
In terms of those reports that the rest of the smartphone industry could sell, I was told “these rumors have no value. Huawei does not have such a plan. We are fully committed to our smartphone industry and will continue to deliver world-class products and experiences to consumers around the world. ”
Overall, we do not have answers yet, we do not have clear guidelines. Just more players. And that could be even more complicated. Beyond the threat to Apple, Samsung, et al from Unreleased Honor, there is a chance that we will see some sort of Huawei consumer business revive in the coming months under a small focus shift in the US , whether through the return or Google of Huawei’s silicone supply chain renewal or other move within the consumer industry.
The question of a kill for Huawei (outside of China) smartphone users remains simple – will they see the upgrade of Google apps and services to new flagship devices. I would not bet against it over the next 6-18 months. But don’t expect Harmony to fall from Huawei’s plans either. The company will not want to change tone or administration in the future by repeating it and they will protect it.