Latest news with #HarmonyOSNext
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Huawei launches first foldable smartphone running on home-grown HarmonyOS Next platform
Huawei Technologies on Thursday launched a new foldable smartphone running on its home-grown HarmonyOS operating system, as the tech giant builds on the revival of its lucrative handset business despite US sanctions. The Pura X, under its premium Pura brand, is a vertically-folded device that features a bigger 6.3-inch screen, with a 16:10 aspect ratio similar to a tablet. The device had a smaller 3.5-inch screen on the back, which supported features including phone calls and mobile payments, Richard Yu Chengdong, chairman of Huawei's consumer business group, said at the launch in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. The phone runs on Huawei's HarmonyOS Next operating system, the latest iteration of its mobile platform that is not compatible with Android. It is the second phone built on the updated system after the Huawei Mate 70 series, unveiled in November. Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. Huawei's comeback in the smartphone market is a sign of Chinese resilience under US technology restrictions. Huawei surprised many industry observers with an in-house 5G chip used in the Mate 60 in 2023, and the company impressed the world with the launch of the world's first trifold phone in 2024. The new Huawei Pura X foldable smartphone. Photo: Handout alt=The new Huawei Pura X foldable smartphone. Photo: Handout> While Huawei may not have access to the most advanced chips, Yu said HarmonyOS offered "a 40 per cent performance improvement" over Android. Yu said earlier this month that over 20,000 native apps and services had been made available on HarmonyOS Next, with 20 apps exceeding 2 million downloads. Huawei expects all of its smartphones and tablets to run the new operating system this year. The new Pura X, which is available in five colour options, has a starting price of 7,499 yuan (US$1,037). At that price level, it does not qualify for China's government subsidy scheme that provides a 15 per cent subsidy for purchasing smartphones, tablets and smartwatches that cost under 6,000 yuan, a sign that the company is committed to expanding its presence in the premium market. Last year, HarmonyOS saw increased adoption in the world's largest smartphone market. In the three months ended December 31, its market share reached 19 per cent, the fourth consecutive quarter that it was ahead of Apple's iOS. Android remained the dominant mobile operating system on the mainland with a fourth-quarter share of 64 per cent, while Apple's iOS held a share of 17 per cent last quarter, according to Counterpoint Research. Huawei led China's smartphone market in January, on the back of the government subsidy scheme that started on January 20. Total sales from January 20 to 26, the first week of the programme, jumped 65 per cent year on year to over 9.5 million units, according to Counterpoint data. Apple, whose latest iPhone 16 models do not qualify for the subsidies due to their premium positioning, last month introduced the budget-priced iPhone 16e, which can receive a 500-yuan discount in China if it is not the model with 512-gigabytes of storage. This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Yahoo
22-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Huawei Targets iOS and Android With $1,000 Pura X Folding Phone Running HarmonyOS
Huawei launched its new foldable smartphone, the Pura X, on Thursday. This device is the first to run Huawei's own operating system, which it hopes will create an alternative to Google's Android and Apple's iOS. The Pura X has a 6.3-inch display when unfolded, with a new 16:10 aspect ratio that gives it a wider screen area than most other smartphones on the market. The device folds in half into a compact square and has a 3.5-inch display with a camera at the front. The Pura X starts at 7,499 Chinese yuan ($1,037). Huawei's market share in the fourth quarter of 2024 rose to 16.2% in China versus 13.7% a year before, according to the International Data Corporation. Apple's market share declined from 20% to 17.4% over the same period, as reported by CNBC. It was initially launched in November as HarmonyOS Next and reportedly no longer uses code from the open-source version of Google's Android operating system. This is a big step by Huawei to cut any ties to Google and Android. In 2019, US sanctions forced Google to stop working with Huawei. The Pura X is also equipped with Xiaoyi, Huawei's AI assistant which is underpinned by its own artificial intelligence models as well as those developed by DeepSeek.
South China Morning Post
20-03-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Huawei launches first foldable smartphone running on home-grown HarmonyOS Next platform
Huawei Technologies on Thursday launched a new foldable smartphone running on its home-grown HarmonyOS operating system, as the tech giant builds on the revival of its lucrative handset business despite US sanctions. Advertisement The Pura X, under its premium Pura brand, is a vertically-folded device that features a bigger 6.3-inch screen, with a 16:10 aspect ratio similar to a tablet. The device had a smaller 3.5-inch screen on the back, which supported features including phone calls and mobile payments, Richard Yu Chengdong, chairman of Huawei's consumer business group, said at the launch in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. The phone runs on Huawei's HarmonyOS Next operating system, the latest iteration of its mobile platform that is not compatible with Android. It is the second phone built on the updated system after the Huawei Mate 70 series, unveiled in November. Huawei's comeback in the smartphone market is a sign of Chinese resilience under US technology restrictions. Huawei surprised many industry observers with an in-house 5G chip used in the Mate 60 in 2023, and the company impressed the world with the launch of the world's first trifold phone in 2024. The new Huawei Pura X foldable smartphone. Photo: Handout While Huawei may not have access to the most advanced chips, Yu said HarmonyOS offered 'a 40 per cent performance improvement' over Android. Yu said earlier this month that over 20,000 native apps and services had been made available on HarmonyOS Next, with 20 apps exceeding 2 million downloads. Huawei expects all of its smartphones and tablets to run the new operating system this year.
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Huawei teases HarmonyOS Next smartphone with 'new form factor' as related stocks jump
Huawei Technologies teased a new smartphone powered by its home-grown mobile platform HarmonyOS Next, sparking a guessing game on the Chinese technology giant's next move and sending related stocks higher. The company planned to unveil in March a handset with a "new form factor" as "the first [device] born out of the HarmonyOS Next ecosystem", Richard Yu Chengdong, chairman of Huawei's consumer business group, said in a video on Monday. The new smartphone would present breakthroughs in hardware, software and the app ecosystem, Yu said. He added that Huawei's HarmonyOS partners - including Tencent Holdings, ByteDance, Alibaba Group Holding and Meituan - were optimising their apps for the coming device. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post. Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. Huawei, which is barred from accessing US-origin technologies under Washington's trade sanctions, has been pushing for the adoption of HarmonyOS Next, the latest iteration of its self-developed platform that no longer supports Android apps. Richard Yu Chengdong, chairman of Huawei's consumer business group, speaks at the launch event of HarmonyOS Next in Shenzhen last October. Photo: Xinhua alt=Richard Yu Chengdong, chairman of Huawei's consumer business group, speaks at the launch event of HarmonyOS Next in Shenzhen last October. Photo: Xinhua> Yu's video has ignited speculation about Huawei's next product. The handset could be a new type of foldable smartphone running on HarmonyOS Next, according to a report on Tuesday from news outlet China Star Market citing anonymous sources. Huawei declined to provide further details on the handset on Wednesday. Despite the vagueness of Huawei's announcement, related stocks in the Chinese electronics supply chain have surged. Shanghai-listed Fujian Furi Electronics, a contract manufacturer for Huawei devices, rose 5 per cent in the early afternoon on Wednesday, after jumping by the daily limit of 10 per cent on Monday and Tuesday. Huawei has set a target to have all of its smartphones and tablets running HarmonyOS Next this year. The Shenzhen-based company released the flagship Mate 70 series in November as its first line of smartphones running on the updated operating system, although users could still opt for the Android-based HarmonyOS 4.3. Huawei's Mate XT trifold smartphone seen at a launch event last week in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Photo: EPA-EFE alt=Huawei's Mate XT trifold smartphone seen at a launch event last week in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Photo: EPA-EFE> The HarmonyOS Next ecosystem, with over 15,000 native apps and services, was "basically usable", Huawei's rotating chairman Eric Xu Zhijun said at the time. The company expected the operating system to reach "maturity" by achieving 100,000 apps in the next six months to a year, he added. Huawei's mobile ecosystem gained a vital ally in January when Tencent's super app WeChat officially launched on HarmonyOS Next. Other major local apps - including TikTok's Chinese sibling Douyin and Alipay from Alibaba's fintech affiliate Ant Group - have also got on board. Huawei has been rebuilding its consumer device business after US sanctions decimated the sales of its smartphones. It is also doubling down on efforts to reduce reliance on foreign software and hardware. The company last week kicked off the international roll-out of the Mate XT foldable smartphone with a launch in Malaysia. Initially released in China in September, the Mate XT was the world's first trifold smartphone. This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Sign in to access your portfolio
Bloomberg
28-01-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Huawei's Google-Free Phones Are Making Real Progress
Huawei Technologies Co.'s ambition in consumer devices over the past year has been to decouple from Alphabet Inc.'s Android software entirely, culminating with the launch of its made-in-China HarmonyOS Next alongside the Mate 70 smartphone in December. It's the most substantial attempt at building a third mobile ecosystem, outside of Apple Inc.'s iPhone empire and the Google-led Android confederation, and it builds on the company's considerable reach, resources and nearly a billion existing users in China. HarmonyOS got its start in 2019 when US trade restrictions barred Huawei from doing regular business with the likes of Google. After years of relying on the open-source Android infrastructure — and thus maintaining compatibility with Android apps — Huawei is striking out on its own and hoping to bring major service and software providers along for the ride. It's an existential matter for the company's consumer business, as the US president who initiated sanctions on the company has returned for a second term, offering little prospect of relief.
