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These three steps could help Huawei to regain global smartphone market without Google

Published

9 months ago

August 10, 2023

Earlier this month, Huawei’s Consumer Business CEO said that Huawei is returning to the smartphone market at full capacity. And it leads us to the question, of whether Huawei could regain a good position in the global smartphone market without Google apps. You can participate in the poll linked below and share your own opinion on this matter. Let’s dive into this.

To achieve this task, Huawei currently needs to resolve the following challenges – supply chain, price, and software.

Supply Chain:

In 2019, Huawei was blocked by the US, which prohibits the company from purchasing important electronic goods including 5G chipsets. Although, Huawei can design the chip but can’t print them. Similarly, Huawei had to face issues in gathering other electronic components including display, camera, and network components.

Throughout the past three years, Huawei only worked with supply chain and industry partners in China. And 2022 was quite successful for the company, which helped it to access most of its components domestically.

Still, the impact of dropping the 5G network in phones had a wide effect on Huawei smartphone sales. But reports indicate that Huawei is also working on this issue and there’s a good chance to see a 5G phone later this year or by the next year.

Outside of China, Huawei also needs a good supply in order to distribute across different markets. This could only be possible with an easy-to-access supply chain so that you can cut the price and make it reasonable for the customers.

Price:

Price is a key factor in selling and buying new smartphones. Huawei needs to increase its segments and phone portfolio for global customers. Even if it can’t do it rapidly, a gradual expansion is worth trying.

Global users keep on exploring interesting options to switch from their existing brand and price is an attractive viewpoint. Even the flagship, Huawei Mate 50 Pro was overpriced without 5G. On the other hand, the Huawei Mate 20 series sold millions of units and ranked below only the Huawei P30 series. Market demand changes according to current technologies and Huawei needs to adopt new tactics to promote new devices. Therefore, it can’t rely only on flagship phones.

Introducing more smartphones in different price ranges will help the company to grow its appearance back into the consumer world.

Software:

This is a major issue, which needs proper attention from the Huawei software developers. The tech maker now stands as the slowest software update provider with EMUI 13 release. On the other hand, Huawei is providing full support for its Chinese users. HarmonyOS has become one of the biggest success stories for Huawei but it remains inside the Chinese territory.

Hence, Huawei global users keep on waiting for new updates, as they delay for even months in some cases. Many of the recent smartphones are not even mentioned in the EMUI 13 upgrade plan. Therefore, a robust software rollout and security release system is required for a better user experience.

Since Huawei sells phones without Google apps, it needs to partner with major developers to bring big apps and games to AppGallery. We observe that the app distribution platform has increased its app portfolio but there’s more that is need to be done.

Competition:

Huawei should complete these challenging steps and then compete against the current reign of top giants including Samsung, Apple, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi. These companies are ruling supreme after Huawei’s outcast in 2020.

Since they still operating with a fast supply chain, good price options (except Apple), and better software capabilities, Huawei need to excel on all sides to regain its footprint in the global smartphone market.