HUAWEI’s continued shift away from consumer hardware and in the direction of software development has found more support from founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei, reports Reuters. In an internal memo sent to employees, the HUAWEI chief asked employees to ‘lead the world’ in the domain of software – a decision aimed at negating US sanctions that have severely affected the company’s ability to make and sell devices such as smartphones and telecom equipment in many overseas markets.
Ren said in the memo the company was focusing on software because future development in the field is fundamentally “outside of U.S. control and we will have greater independence and autonomy”.
As it will be hard for Huawei to produce advanced hardware in the short term, it should focus on building software ecosystems, such as its HarmonyOS operating system, its cloud AI system Mindspore, and other IT products, the note said.
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The HUAWEI chief also mentioned that the company should learn from the open-source communities and focus on developing an entire ecosystem, rather than software limited by a particular class of products or use case scenario. HUAWEI already has spent millions of dollars on the in-house HarmonyOS that will run on devices ranging from smartphones and wearables to smart TVs and even electric vehicles.
HUAWEI’s smartphone business has plummeted, both in the domestic as well as international markets.
More importantly, the focus is not just on developing software to boost its revenue stream, but to ultimately create an influence zone that will allow the company to end its reliance on the US market. The Chinese company aims to dominate Europe, Asia Pacific, and Africa with its software and wants to be in a position that US sanctions are no longer a cause of concern, and if needed, exclude the competition from the US market
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Ever since the US put HUAWEI on the trade blacklist, the company has been bleeding crucial market share and millions of dollars in revenue, especially after losing key supply chain partners and access to Google services on its phones. And even after a change in White House leadership, the US government has shown no signs of easing things for the company that has been classified as a national security threat.