The brand recognition of HarmonyOS has been steadily increasing year by year. From 50% in February 2021, it has risen to 85% in June of this year.

Currently, more than 700 million Harmony ecosystem devices are in use. These devices include smartphones, wearables, car cockpits, smart screens, tablets, smart home, headphones, and more.

In addition, the number of HarmonyOS developers has exceeded 2.2 million, with API calls reaching 59 billion times per day.

Regarding multi-device collaboration, there has been a 32% growth in fitness and health recording, and mobile application downloads have increased by more than 33%.

It is reported that Huawei began planning its proprietary operating system “HarmonyOS” in 2012 and officially released HarmonyOS in August 2019. After several iterations, HarmonyOS has gradually been applied to Huawei products such as smartphones, TVs, watches, and intelligent cockpits.

Huawei’s focus on HarmonyOS is a significant aspect of its strategy to create a complete ecosystem beyond smartphones. By covering various types of devices, such as wearables, car systems, and smart home appliances, HarmonyOS aims to provide a seamless user experience across the spectrum of everyday technologies.

The increase in brand recognition and the vast number of devices operating on HarmonyOS signal a positive trend for Huawei’s ambitions. With a growing developer community and a clear increase in application downloads, Harmony’s ecosystem seems to be maturing.

These achievements are essential for Huawei, particularly as international tensions and restrictions have impacted its operations in several markets. The development and success of HarmonyOS can give the company more control over its technology and reduce its dependence on foreign operating systems.

The latest updates shared during the Huawei Developer Conference 2023 mark a new milestone in the growth of HarmonyOS.

With significant advancements in multi-device collaboration and a surge in the developer community, Harmony is positioning itself as a comprehensive and versatile operating system. The continued expansion of Harmony’s ecosystem will likely play a crucial role in shaping Huawei’s future, strengthening its presence in various technological domains.

GSMA has a very exciting programme lined up for Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2018. While showcasing the latest developments in mobile, this year’s event will offer attendees a wide range of experiences through the conference, the exhibition and specialized programmes such as Women4Tech, 4YFN and beyond.

The GSMA announced several additional keynote speakers for Mobile World Congress Shanghai, with executives from leading mobile operators, infrastructure providers and other companies across the broad mobile ecosystem. Recently confirmed speakers include:

• Sabeen Ali, Founder and CEO, AngelHack
• Thaddeus Arroyo, CEO, AT&T Business
• Liu Aili, President and COO, China Telecom
• Borje Ekholm, President and CEO, Ericsson
• Eric Xu, Rotating Chairman, Huawei
• Greg Wyler, Founder and Executive Chairman, OneWeb

The GSMA also introduced a new element for this year’s Mobile World Congress Shanghai: the Leaders Stage. The Leaders Stage programme is open to Mobile World Congress Shanghai attendees holding VIP, Gold or All Exhibition Passes, and will explore wide-ranging trends that are shaping the mobile future and impacting citizens’ everyday lives. Executives participating in the Leaders Stage include:

• Nicole Richards, Catalyst, Dovetailed
• Kirti Lad, Executive Director, Meraki Executive Search & Consulting
• Jingyi Yu, CEO, Chairman and Chief Scientist, Plex-VR Digital Technology
• Bessie Lee, CEO and Founder, Withinlink

For further details on the conference programme, including the agenda and confirmed speakers, visit www.mwcshanghai.com/conference-programmes/

Women4Tech Summit at Mobile World Congress Shanghai

The GSMA announced the first speakers for the Women4Tech Summit, which will be held Thursday, 28 June at the Leaders Stage. The Women4Tech Summit will bring together senior-level speakers and panellists to discuss how to ensure gender equality in mainstream work environments and share strategic advice on broadening gender diversity in mobile and related industries.

The Summit will highlight topics around women’s role in empowering, encouraging, transforming and innovating in technology. The first confirmed Women4Tech keynote speakers and panellists include:

• Nicole Peng, Senior Director, Mobility, Canalys
• Åsa Tamsons, EVP and Head of Emerging Business, Ericsson
• Azita Arvani, Head of Innovation Partner & Venture Management, Nokia
• Anna Yip, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, SmarTone
• Mary Clark, CMO and EVP Product, Synchronoss

Additional Women4Tech activities include a speed coaching and networking session, activities at 4YFN and Women4Tech Asia Mobile (AMO) Awards for Outstanding Achievement Asia Industry Leadership, among others. For more information on the Women4Tech Programme at Mobile World Congress Shanghai, visit www.mwcshanghai.com/experiences/gsma-women4tech/.

New Developments in 4 Years From Now (4YFN)

4YFN returns to Asia for the third year, highlighting key technology trends and exploring disruptive innovation with a comprehensive programme for startups, investors and corporations. 4YFN offers unique connecting initiatives, including custom networking activities, inspirational talks, technical workshops, community outreach and the 4YFN Summit.

For 2018, 4YFN is located in the NEXTech Hall, which puts the spotlight on next-generation technologies, products and experiences. Exhibitors at 4YFN include Daejeon Information & Culture Industry Promotion Agency (DICIA), Korea Institute of Startups & Entrepreneurship Development (KISED), Qualcomm Technologies and Shanghai Technology Innovation Center, among others.

Leading venture capital and investment organisations including DCM Ventures, IBM Venture Capital Group, Legend Capital, Telefónica Open Future, Telstra Ventures and others will participate in the 4YFN Founders and Investors Programme and 4YFN Summit.

Executives confirmed to speak in the 4YFN Summit taking place 27-29 June include Minette Navarrete, President, Kickstart, Globe Telecom; David Tang, Managing Partner, Nokia Growth Partners; and Volker Heistermann, Managing Director, Yushan Ventures. For more information about 4YFN, visit www.mwcshanghai.com/4yfn.

The Asia Mobile Awards will also showcase 4YFN with the “4YFN Best Startup of the Year Award”, which recognises organisations focused on accelerating business development and the investment of new technologies within the startup community. The winner of this award will be featured on the Leaders Stage and will receive a free stand at 4YFN Barcelona 2019.

The winner will have the opportunity to participate in acceleration, mentoring and investment programmes with 4YFN, including the accelerator programme of BGTA, a London-based accelerator with operations in China and the 4YFN Award Partner. For more information about 4YFN Asia Mobile Awards, visit www.mwcshanghai.com/conference-programmes/asia-mobile-awards-2018/2018-categories/.

droidcon Comes to Mobile World Congress Shanghai

The GSMA will partner with Beijing Changfeng Information Technology Industry Alliance & Mobile Seasons GmbH to bring droidcon to Mobile World Congress Shanghai. Started in Berlin in 2009, droidcon is the premier global community of over 25,000 developers worldwide. droidcon is designed to provide an open platform for Android development engineers, users and entrepreneurs to share technology advances, development experience and innovation practices. droidcon Shanghai 2018 will be held in the NEXTech Theatre in the NEXTech Hall (Hall W5), alongside the Device City, AR/VR/MR Zone and 4YFN.

New Exhibitors and Event Partners Confirmed

The GSMA confirmed several new regional pavilions in the exhibition, including Enterprise Ireland, Russian Export Center JSC and Shanghai Technology Innovation Centre, as well as the Korea pavilion featuring Daegu Digital Industry Promotion Agency (DIP), Daejeon Information & Culture Industry Promotion Agency (DICIA), Gwangju Information & Culture Industry Promotion Agency (GITCT), Korea Association for ICT Promotion (KAIT), Korea Information & Communication Technology Industry Association (KICTA) and Korea Institute of Startups and Entrepreneurship Development.

Elsewhere in the exhibition, Eyesight, Onstar and Volkswagen will explore the intersection of mobile and automotive in the AutoTech Zone. Exhibitors including Dozen, Gowild and others will be showcasing the latest developments in artificial intelligence (AI) in the AI Zone, while 263 Mobile, Acoustics and ZTE Welink will demonstrate the technologies and applications shaping the Internet of Things (IoT) in the IoT Zone. For more information on the exhibition, visit www.mwcshanghai.com/exhibition/.

As always, the GSMA Innovation City will be a major highlight of the show, enabling attendees to experience technology in context and see how mobile-connected products and services can improve their daily lives. Continental and Zhejiang Panshi Information Technology become the latest companies to participate in the Innovation City, alongside previously announced partners BICS, Huawei, myFC and SI-Tech Information Technology. For more information, visit www.mwcshanghai.com/exhibition/gsma-innovation-city/.

MWC Shanghai Tours Offer Focused Experiences

To help attendees better navigate Mobile World Congress Shanghai, the GSMA is offering four different tours of the SNIEC, led by industry experts. The MWC Shanghai Tours will focus on topics including 5G & NFV, Artificial Intelligence, Consumer Tech and IoT, and will provide experiences that are tailored to meet attendees’ individual business objectives and requirements. For more information on MWC Shanghai Tours and registration, please visit www.mwcshanghai.com/experiences/mwc-shanghai-tours/.

Register and Get Involved at Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2018

Registration for Mobile World Congress Shanghai is now open. For more information on Mobile World Congress Shanghai, including how to attend, exhibit, partner or sponsor, visit www.mwcshanghai.com. Follow developments and updates on Mobile World Congress Shanghai through our social media channels – follow us on Twitter at @GSMA and use #MWCS18, get regular updates through our LinkedIn Showcase Page at www.linkedin.com/company/mobile-world-congress-shanghai, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mwcshanghai. In China, you can follow us on Sina Weibo http://weibo.com/mwcshanghai or search “GSMA_MWCS” in WeChat.

CIW, as our media partner, offers its audience an AEP (worth $75) registration code FEPQWRNEUM that you use to register.

WeChat launched rewarded video ads platform for mini-games

Xiaomi filed an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong on May 3, 2018, becoming the first technology corporation to use Hong Kong’s new rule, i.e. dual-class shares, for going public.

The filing is expected to raise at least US$ 10 billion and value the company at between US$100-120 billion, making it the largest IPO since Alibaba in New York.

According to the IPO filing, Xiaomi’s revenue grew 167.5% from 68.43 billion yuan in 2016 to 114.64 billion yuan in 2017.

Xiaomi’s operating profits reached 12.22 billion yuan in 2017, an increase of 222.7% year-on-year. Xiaomi made a net loss of 43.9 billion yuan in 2017, down from 0.49 billion yuan profit a year earlier.

In 2017, Xiaomi derived nearly 70.3% of its revenue from smartphones, which was 80.56 billion yuan. Revenue derived from IOT (internet of things) and lifestyle products reached 23.45 billion yuan, accounting for 20.5% of the total. Revenue derived from internet service was 9.9 billion yuan, accounting for 8.6% of the total.

In terms of sales volume and average selling prices of Xiaomi smartphone, Xiaomi sold 66.546, 55.419, and 91.41 million smartphones respectively from 2015 to 2017. The average selling price of a Xiaomi smartphone was 807.2 yuan, 879.9 yuan, and 881.3 yuan respectively from 2015 to 2017.

As of 31 March 2018, Xiaomi has developed 38 10-million-MAU and 18 50-million-MAU mobile apps including Xiaomi App Store, Xiaomi Browser, Xiaomi Music, and Xiaomi Videos. On average, a Xiaomi user spends about 4.5 hours on the smartphone.

Check out China mobile app user insights 2018

China smartphone market declined 15.7% year-over-year (YoY) in Q4 2017 and 4.9% for the whole of 2017 according to IDC.

Apple’s share increased YoY and QoQ in Q4 2017. Although the iPhone X was available in short supply initially at launch in early November 2017, the supply constraints for this model eased towards the end of the quarter. Apple’s ASP increased by 23.9% YoY in 2017Q4 largely due to the shipments of the iPhone X. Apple alone made up 85% of the overall shipments in >US$600 premium segment.

Huawei appears on the radar to compete with Apple in the >US$600 premium segment. Huawei grew in Q4 2017 largely due to the strong shipment for both its Honor and Huawei branded phones in the US$600 premium segment still remains low, it has grown from making up 2% of the shipments in this segment in 2016Q4 to 8% in Q4 2017. With its Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro series being quite popular, Huawei will be a potential competitor to Apple in the >US$600 premium segment in China.

With Samsung’s continued troubles in the China market, Huawei has successfully managed to break into the high-end Android vendor space, although price points of the flagship Huawei phones are carefully priced lower than the iPhone prices at launch.

OPPO and vivo are focusing more on the mid-range segment, with a higher share of their portfolio focused on the mid-range segment compared to a year ago. The reduction in the number of OPPO and vivo models in the low-end segment also contributed to their YoY decline in Q4 2017.

While focusing more on the mid-range segment has hurt its overall shipment growth, OPPO and Vivo’s overall ASPs have increased YoY. In terms of revenue, OPPO ranked second to Apple and was above Huawei. vivo follows at fourth place. Thus, while OPPO’s shipments may have declined, it is growing in terms of its overall revenue.

China smartphone users: iPhone vs Android

The Big Picture of Mobility: 2017 Deloitte China Mobile Consumer Survey is an online survey conducted by Deloitte China TMT industry during the past five years. The survey focuses on consumer behaviors, trends, and opinions regarding a broad range of wireless and mobility products and services.  

Aiming to explore the level of applications, devices and support, this survey covers several recent hot topics such as the content consumption, mobile payment, digital devices, data security, biometrics and internet of things (IoT) in order to reveal the key trends that drive the mobile markets and to provide suggestions for relevant enterprises.

Smartphones will still remain dominant

• The mobile phone has surpassed tablets and other digital devices in ownership rate, and vastly exceeded emerging digital products represented by smartwatch and smart bracelet in this regard.
• The smartphone’s success in the future is likely to be the introduction of an array of innovations that are largely invisible.

Machine Learning (ML) will be fitted as standard in phones

• AI chips will be fitted as standard in smartphones, and the amount of machine learning-based applications is expected to steadily increase.
• With smartphones becoming an increasingly viable deployment option for ML, the spectrum of potential scenarios is expanding.

Fingerprint authentication marks the password-free era

• Fingerprint authentication has become a standard configuration of smartphones, exceeding password as the main way of unblocking smartphones.
• At the moment, nearly seventy percent of smartphones are with fingerprint authentication function. Full coverage will be achieved in the future and more usage scenarios of fingerprint authentication will appear.

Consumers attach more importance to the phone storage space

• The consideration of necessity and storage space will become major factors that affect the number of Apps installed. In view of this, App differentiation is likely to be the new ground for the development of mobile phone applications.

The self-introspection of mobile phone addicts should arouse attention 

• Consumers are trying to limit their phone usage to prevent live and work from being occupied, while smartphones utilization will continue to rise given the increasingly assembled function embedded in smartphones.

Physical stores and online stores will keep the back-and-forth relationship

• The physical stores are showing signs of revival since the consumers focus more on the product experience, brand, and innovation etc.
• Online stores are losing price advantages and will experience a slowing growth in the future.

The outlook of wearable devices and IoT devices are still unclear

• Due to the price issue as well as low intelligence degree, IoT equipment will keep low ownership rate in short time and will mainly focus on entertainment products.

Mobile video will encourage the data traffic consumption

• The video contents are popular and the demand of consumers for data traffic will further increase. Hence the core position of data traffic services in the whole business of operators will be further deepened.

Personal information leakage becomes the new normal 

• Driven by economic interest, enterprises collect and reveal consumer information, which causes the frequent leakage of personal information and arouses consumer attention on such behavior of enterprises.

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Total monthly active users of China’s short video platforms grew to 244 million in Q3 2017 according to data from Analysis. The daily active users is close to 86 million.

Short video content recommendation and aggregation platforms also grew to 72 million MAU with close to 22 million DAU in Q3 2017.

On average, an short video platform user launches the application about 51 times per day, down from 61 in July 2017. The average usage time also dropped to 6.64 minutes per day.

Similarly for short video aggregation platforms, the launch frequency and usage time both dropped across the third quarter of 2017.

The top short video platforms in China by usage penetration are Miaopai, Kuaishou, iXigua, Meipai,and Tudou.com.

Demographic profile of short video users in China in Q3 2017

Check out China video advertising market here.

NetEase rose to the second place right after Tencent in November 2017 by total number of iOS app downloads with two mobile games, Knives Out and Rules of Survival according to App Annie.

Tencent remains the biggest iOS app publisher by total downloads in Nov 2017 with a total number of 445 apps, followed by NetEase (248 iOS apps), Alibaba Group (154 apps), and Baidu (190 apps).

Tencent is also the top iOS publisher by total revenues, followed by NetEase, OneSmile, and Baidu.

The top 10 iOS apps by total download in Nov 2017 are Knives Out, WeChat, Taobao, Alipay, Baidu, QQ, Tencent Video, Rules of Survival, iQiyi, and Honour of Kings.

The top 10 iOS apps by total revenues are Honour of Kings, Fantasy Westward Journey, Tencent Video, Kwai (one of the most popular short-video apps full of entertaining content), Westward Journey Online, Ghost, Onmyoji, King of Chaos, iQiyi, and Archangel Sword H5. All are gaming apps except the three video apps (Tencent Video, Kwai, and iQiyi).

China smartphone market in Q3 2017; 4 out of 10 using Huawei or iPhone

Leading smartphone brands have tightened their grip of urban China market. In the three months ending October 2017, the top five brands – Huawei (including sub-brand Honor), Xiaomi, Apple, Vivo and OPPO – made up 91% of smartphone sales in urban China, compared to 79% a year earlier, according to the latest smartphone OS data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

China, a market once overrun with new challengers, is maturing.

“Chinese challenger brands like Meizu, LeTV, Coolpad, ZTE, and Lenovo were once on the same trajectory as like of Xiaomi, but any momentum they once had has abruptly stopped, with many struggling to get past a 1% share,” said Dominic Sunnebo, Global Business Unit Director for Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. “Samsung’s performance in China continues to deteriorate, with its share now down to just 2.2% of that market.”

Kantar Worldpanel ComTech carries out monthly panel surveys among Chinese urban mobile phone users to monitor the market share changes of various brands. In China, the panel size is 22,000. Panellists were recruited from tier-1 to 5 cities and each year more than 260,000 surveys were conducted. The nature of the research methodology means it can cover the influence of smartphones sold in other countries ended up in China and avoid the confusion caused by unsold phones stocked at warehouses of distributors.

Digging deeper into the data, we can see that Xiaomi and Honor both realized significant growth in August – October period. Xiaomi’s sales market share jumped to 20.1%, 1 percentage point higher than in the May – July circle. However, due to its previously lacklustre performance, currently only 13.8% of all urban smartphone users are using Xiaomi, 2.1 percentage points lower than a year ago.

Honor’s share was 11.7% in August – October, also 1 percentage point higher than in May – July circle. Among all urban smartphone users, 9.8% are using Honor, 1.3 percentage points higher than a year ago.

Among the top 20 best-selling models during August – October period, eight are from Xiaomi or Honor.

Even though “price” is the biggest advantage of both brands when people making their purchasing decision, Xiaomi and Honor have both managed to achieve higher selling prices. Between August and October, the average selling price of Xiaomi models is 1,640.32 yuan, 321.96 yuan higher than a year ago; that of Honor phones is 2,136.66 yuan, 506.53 yuan higher than a year ago.

It’s a bittersweet period for Apple. Urban China remained a bright spot for Apple, with its share edging up 0.5 percentage point in the latest three months to reach 17.4%.

But globally, iOS share fell in key markets, making clear the impact of the flagship iPhone X not being available to buy in the month of October.

Dominic said: “It was somewhat inevitable that Apple would see volume share fall once we had a full comparative month of sales taking into account the non-flagship iPhone 8 vs. the flagship iPhone 7 from 2016. This decrease is significant and puts pressure on the iPhone X to perform.

“Considering the complete overhaul that the iPhone X offers, consumers may be postponing their purchase decisions until they can test the iPhone X and decide whether the higher price, compared to the iPhone 8, is worth the premium to them,” he said.

He added: “As of October 2017, 35.3% of Apple’s installed base customers across Europe and the United States had owned their iPhones for more than two years – up from 30.1% a year earlier and signifying considerable pent-up demand within Apple’s base. In pure value terms, it is likely the iPhone X average selling price will more than make up for a dip in sales of older iPhone models.”

China smartphone market in Q3 2017; 4 out of 10 using Huawei or iPhone

WeChat now hosts more than 14 million WeChat official accounts, used by companies, retailers, and brands to interact with the public.

A team from Shanghai Jiaotong University analyzed data collected between February and April of 2017 to glean more information about how users interact with these accounts and how companies use them.

98% of WeChat official accounts are subscription readers. Official accounts most commonly publish information about companies and content related to people’s lives.

About 5.4 million WeChat official accounts published at least once in the past three days; and, 38% of users are active. 1,917 accounts have published at least one post that generated at least 100,000 views, accounting for 0.01% of total.

6.99% accounts have published at least one article that has at least 1,000 views. The vast majority don’t have a single post which has reached 1,000 views.

Aside from the four first-tier cities, Chongqing, Xi’an, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Changsha, and Xiamen are locations most prominently featured in official account posts.

Chongqing ranks at the top, being mentioned nearly 34,000 times in the three months during which data was harvested.

Most WeChat official accounts are used for PR and marketing purposes; eating out, leisure, shopping, and automobile are the most common topics, with the automobile in the lead, especially among accounts with over 100,000 followers.

Some 14-16 million companies in China have hired full- or part-time social media experts. Find out why most corporate WeChat official accounts fail and more insights here.

More than three-quarters (76.3%) of smartphone users (461.4 million) in China will use phone payment for goods and services at the point of sale (POS) in 2017 according to eMarketer, raising its projections by more than 86.0%.

eMarketer estimates by 2021, 79.3% of smartphone users will be tapping, scanning and swiping at the POS, comparing with 31% in the US.

Over 90% of Alibaba’s Double 11 transactions are from mobile in 2017.

Chinese consumers spent US$5.5 trillion via mobile payment platforms in 2016, about 50 times more than their American counterparts. By the end of 2016, Tencent alone saw its active mobile payment accounts exceed 600 million users per month.

The average payment transactions also exceed 600 million transactions per day. The cashless lifestyle is now becoming a reality in China. REPORT Mobile Payment Usage in China 2017 »