While Huawei waits to see if Donald Trump’s departure signals a change of fortune for his smartphone business, he has launched a new strike against his Android partners, praising Apple’s iPhone as ” the best 5G phone in the world ”and talks about the quality of its technology for iPhone 12 users.
Apple and Huawei 5G
VCG through Getty Images
Prior to being dismantled by Trump’s blacklist, Huawei had built an Android powerhouse, climbing the league record of the smartphone, challenging Samsung for its long-held dominance, even took over for a few months last year. But the fact is that Huawei never looked to Samsung for promotion, its eyes are always on Cupertino instead.
I’ve been arguing for a while that Huawei’s strategy, its ability to control both the software and hardware ecosystem is much more like Apple than anything on the Android side of the house. This was confirmed last year, when I was told by the UK consumer leader “we are one of only two companies worldwide to be able to get this hardware and software solution for the eco- our own system … Only Huawei and Apple can do this – this is our long term strategy. ”
Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei has openly admitted that Apple is his inspiration, telling the media in 2019 that “Apple is the leading company in the world … Apple is my teacher; it’s getting ahead of us. ” And so it’s no surprise that Ren and his daughter, Meng Wanzhou, are both Apple users. In fact, Meng’s Apple MacBook, iPad and iPhone were all seized during his arrest in Canada in 2018, and have emerged in the ongoing legal battle over the ways in which the pass codes to secure.
Huawei is now at a crossroads. After being honored, Profit has found out if its flagship Mate and P-Series machines will follow suit. “Our shipping of high-end phones has gone down due to a lack of chip supply,” Ren acknowledged this week. It was this latest extension of U.S. sanctions, to cut the company’s silicon supply chain, that disrupted the consumer industry, lowering that smartphone league record.
And so until this week, when Ren laments the surprise of Apple’s iPhone as the best device of its kind, implying that it will be ahead of its Android options. You can’t imagine it landing well with the likes of Samsung or Google.
Speaking up on the quality of Huawei’s 5G networks, Ren used Apple to make his point. “We support the progress of Apple’s iPhone 12,” he said.[which] We managed to achieve a download speed of 1.82 Gbps, making it the best in the world … We helped build the best 5G networks in many cities around the world: Berlin , Munich, Madrid, Zurich, Geneva, Amsterdam, Vienna, Barcelona, Seoul, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Riyadh… Our networks in Europe are well tested by global network performance. ”
Ren also praised Apple for its strength in the “high” sector, arguing that its network equipment was a good thing for iPhone users and that it could comment on Huawei after a turbulent 2 years in the heads. -news.
“Many high-end device users in Europe use iPhones,” he said, “and the way these phones work on our networks in Europe is a sign that we are also doing well. The fact that high-end users can make full use of the iPhone 12 on our 5G networks in Europe is a testament to the quality of our networks. This helps to balance the views of Huawei in Europe. ”
There was logic in Zhang’s comments last year, “that there are only two big players with ecosystems,” he said, “Apple and Google. Having a third will not be a problem. In any business, there are three main rational players. “Since then, Huawei has launched HarmonyOS even more, with open work around its ability to be able to craft their own smartphones once their chipset stores run out. But the strategy itself puts Huawei smartphones at the center of the IoT web, in what seems to me to be very similar to Apple’s approach.
But a smartphone maker is suddenly citing the iPhone as an example of why Huawei’s 5G networks are delivering class-leading speeds in greater surprise.
Everything is still up in the air for Huawei right now, like the battle plane he used as an analogy for his business last year. But there may be surprises in store for Huawei watches. Huawei’s financial figures are unpaid for some weeks, but reports in China this week cite unaudited, unverified internal numbers suggesting “revenue [for 2020] of US $ 136.7 billion, an increase of 11.2%, and its profit was US $ 9.9 billion, an increase of 10.4%. ”
If that were true, then that would be a surprising result given the growing volatility of the U.S. industry and the impact this is now having on the highly profitable smartphone industry. . “Our revenue and sales profits in 2020 were higher than last year.” Ren told the media this week, saying “I am even more confident about Huawei’s survival than I was. “That last point is clearly aided by Trump’s departure.
In the new world, after Trump, Huawei is now talking up the size of its 5G global presence once again. “Huawei has taken over hundreds of 5G networks worldwide,” the company announced last week. “According to the results of a 5G network experience test in global cities conducted by many third-party organizations around the world, in major cities such as Seoul, Amsterdam, Madrid, Zurich, Hong Kong, and Riyadh , Huawei contracted operators were at level one 5G network experience. ”
Good news for all those iPhone 12 users, it seems.