Alexandre BoeroJune 21, 2021 at 12:00 pm32

At the Clubic microphone, Stéphane Curtelin, marketing director of Huawei France, recalled the importance of the in-house operating system, HarmonyOS, which runs on the brand's new devices.

Huawei took advantage of its presence at VivaTech to present its first devices running HarmonyOS, the mobile operating system of the Shenzhen firm, launched at the beginning of June. On its dedicated space at Porte de Versailles, Huawei took us through its new products running on HarmonyOS, including the Watch 3 connected watch, Watch 3 Pro and the MatePad Pro and MatePad 11 tablets.

The opportunity for Clubic to discuss the manufacturer's strategy with Stéphane Curtelin, Marketing Director Huawei Consumer Business France.

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HarmonyOS: interview with Stéphane Curtelin (Huawei)

Clubic: Huawei presents here, at VivaTech, the first devices running Harmony OS, in other words the Watch 3 range of watches and the MatePad Pro and MatePad 11 tablets. Why is this introduction here important for the company?

Stéphane Curtelin: Now, Huawei is going beyond the smartphone. In the company's vision, there is the idea of ​​developing an ecosystem of products to enrich the possibilities around the smartphone. So there are connected watches, tablets, PCs, headphones, speakers with Devialet. The first objective is to make them communicate with each other, and to welcome an ecosystem beyond these products, with partners.

Stéphane Curtelin, marketing director Huawei Consumer Business France (© Alexandre Boero for Clubic)

It seemed natural to enrich the possibilities with the software part, and this is where HarmonyOS comes in, which, for us, is a system third generation operating system. With the arrival of the IoT, there is a need for intuitive connection possibilities between home automation products. One of the strengths of HarmonyOS is to be able to run both on an object with 128 KB of memory and on a connected watch with large storage. We have just announced the arrival of the Watch 3, the first Huawei smartwatch with HarmonyOS, as well as the two tablets you mentioned.

We recently learned that more than 130,000 applications would be available on the OS, with 500,000 developers who specifically develop HarmonyOS experiences, and more than 1,000 manufacturers. We imagine that you find this very encouraging?

These numbers are part of a story that started when we westernized our own application store, the Huawei AppGallery. More than a year ago, we got in touch with a large number of application developers and publishers, so that their applications and solutions were gradually made available, which were under Android, now Android Open Source, using Huawei Mobile Services (HMS). Most of these developers started working with us, and they moved into the world of HarmonyOS.

The Huawei Watch 3 Pro, under HarmonyOS (© Alexandre Boero for Clubic)

Huawei aims to pass a hundred devices under the operating system. With which brands will you collaborate?

We have created a communication protocol, HiLink, on which 600 brands are already working with us, such as Samsonite, Bosch, Siemens or Karcher. And these brands will continue to switch to HarmonyOS. There are five main directions that we want to take and that we offer to our partners: smart travel, the smart office, the smart home, entertainment (gaming in the broad sense) and everything related to fitness and performance monitoring. health.

The connected watch, in our opinion, will become the new gateway to digital life. With the Watch 3, it will be possible to receive independent calls (eSIM), and since it runs on HarmonyOS, it can be a very good product for developing collaborations. For example, for smart travel, we can quite imagine that in the future, with a watch like the Watch 3, it will be possible to unlock and lock your car, go shopping and come back without your smartphone. If you forgot something, you can call with your watch.

Today, many applications already exist, but few are used, barely 10%, because each time, you have to develop, download an application. We want to open up new possibilities. Afterwards, it will be up to the user to choose whether he wants to use it on his coffee maker, his refrigerator, his home automation...

How can creators of connected watches or tablets, who have worked with Apple or Google until now, turn to HarmonyOS?

Huawei's desire is to have an open ecosystem. As such, around HarmonyOS, we have HarmonyOS Connect, a kind of development competition whose allocation amounts to 2 million euros per region, allocated in Europe to the best applications developed and to the partners who will join us. At VivaTech, this year we also supported the program, Digital InPulse, to support start-ups. Huawei has the ambition to deliver an open system that has its roots in open source.

Is the objective for Huawei to nibble away at the market share of its competitors?

The objective is above all to create a third generation operating system, which for us today does not exist. It is therefore going beyond what exists today, in the ease of development, to then offer uses to consumers.

The Huawei MatePad 11 tablet, its 120 Hz FullView screen and its M-Pencil (© Alexandre Boero)

Precisely, we know that for Huawei, it will be easier to conquer the Asian market with HarmonyOS than to impose itself on the European market; how will the brand go about it?

I mentioned earlier the creation of the Huawei AppGallery. It was precisely necessary to westernize an application store that was already doing phenomenally well in China. We now have more than 1,200 French applications that have migrated to HMS Core (Huawei Mobile Services). So it is a reality. The teams based in France will work to meet partners, to operate an ecosystem on HarmonyOS. This is where we come back to the price of 2 million euros offered in each region of the world, since June 10.

This work will start with partners who have already migrated to Huawei AppGallery. Editors should be interested in continuing to HarmonyOS. These are already privileged contacts that we have, in France and all over the world.

Is Huawei setting targets, in France and in Europe, with HarmonyOS, in terms of the number of users expected, for example, by the end of the year?

What we want is to bring the most successful experience to as many people as possible, as we have done on Huawei smartphones with millions of French people, the brand enjoying a strong reputation in the Hexagon. On the strength of this base, we will allow users to discover our products on HarmonyOS. We want to keep this fan base and expand it thanks to the connected watch market, which is in full development and not necessarily linked to the use of a smartphone. For example, many users do not have the same brand of smartphone and connected watch.

So you don't have any particular quantified objective to communicate to us?

This is all under development, but you will be kept informed.

Regarding communication, how will you work to seduce the public?

Our first objective is to make people aware of the existence of these new products. At the moment, we have a campaign on the PC, but we will also communicate more on the Watch 3, the Freebuds 4, all these products which come out at the end of June at the beginning of July.

The Watch 3 for example, in addition to running Harmony, is a superb watch that will benefit from two to three weeks of autonomy, depending on the version and the use made of it, and with materials of very high quality, as well as independent calls. It is these characteristics, associated with HarmonyOS, which will be part of the way we communicate on the OS.