While it may be a name unfamiliar to many in North America, Huawei Technology Co. is quickly becoming a threat to Samsung as the world’s biggest smartphone manufacturer. Based in China, the company is seeing rapid growth as they market their smartphones to emerging markets in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. While their business began by supplying networking equipment, they now enjoy major telcom operators as clients –making their move to smartphones very logical.
So what platform do they prefer to use? It looks like Android is really their only option. Huawei’s Chief of Consumer Business Affairs, Richard Yu, described their experience with Tizen as “been there, done that, don’t like it.” Even beyond those remarks, he also noted that he feels the Tizen platform stands no chance at being successful. He wasn’t much sunnier about his feelings on Windows Phone, with his statement that: “We have tried using the Windows Phone OS. But it has been difficult to persuade consumers to buy a Windows phone. It wasn’t profitable for us. We were losing money for two years on those phones. So for now we’ve decided to put any releases of new Windows phones on hold.”
The company has voices that they are not pleased with the position they have been put in, with no choice but to default to Android –but unless they decide to change their minds and develop an ecosystem of their own, that is what they are left with.
Good news for Android, possible bad news for Apple.
Jillian Koskie is an experienced software developer, content writer, project manager and usability design expert. With over 17 years in these roles, Jillian has enjoyed applying her skill-set to assist clients and users across a wide variety of sectors including: legal, health, and financial services. Combining these professional opportunities with a love of technology, Jillian is pleased to contribute articles, opinions, and advice to numerous news outlets, websites, and publications.