On a fan community page on Chinese social media platform Weibo, hundreds of users have posted comments and pictures, some covered in little red hearts, to express their admiration for a star they affectionately call Kun Kun. “Kun Kun flies bravely, iKun will always follow him; Kun Kun never gets old, and will remain a blue-chip till the end,” some users wrote alongside the picture. “Kun Kun,” whose full name is Zhang Kun, is neither a pop star nor actor. Instead, he is one of China’s most prominent fund managers who oversees around 120 billion yuan ($18.6 billion) in assets at E Fund Management, an established Chinese asset management firm. Zhang’s followers, who label themselves “iKun,” (“i” is a homophone for the Chinese word love), have also created accounts on Weibo posing as his “global fan clubs.” “Kun Kun, I would like to accompany you for many, many years,” a follower wrote. “Let’s witness both the bull and bear markets, but still return with young hearts.”
Chinese handset makers Huawei and Oppo have started engaging with Indian developers with lucrative incentives under their global funds to build localized mobile services that can be offered with their smartphones in the country.
Experts say the move is a part of Huawei's effort to build an alternative to Google's service suite, called Google Media Services (GMS), since there is uncertainty on the use of GMS on Huawei and Honor mobile phones following restrictions announced by the US government earlier this year. GMS includes Gmail, YouTube, Navigation, Google Drive and Maps.
Huawei's sub-brand Honor is in talks with 150 top apps in India to get them on its HMS or Huawei Media Services, Charles Peng, CEO, Huawei and Honor India, Consumer Business Group, told ET. "We have our own HMS and are trying to build a mobile ecosystem. Most of the key apps such as navigation, payments, gaming and messaging will be ready."Huawei's HMS will support smartphones that don't have access to Google's GMS. The executive said that Honor's latest phone will come with Google services. "Consumers won't see a difference between GMS and HMS. We are focusing on how to work with developers to offer a good customer experience. It is a challenge that we are trying to address," he said.
"Huawei HQ is in touch with China developers and the India developer base will help us in India as well as regions like Europe. In every country, we will focus on bringing top 100-150 apps to customers through HMS," Peng added.Huawei, which has around a million registered developers globally for HMS, is offering an incentive of up to $17,000 on the integration of apps with HMS in India through its $1-billion global fund, which was announced this year to develop its own mobile services suite similar to that of Google. "We will create an end to end business model with developers, content and service providers. We will provide value to them," Peng said.Oppo, on the other hand, is allocating $143 million in 2020 for supporting developers across the globe, including India to develop a "new intelligent service ecosystem" with developers and partners around its ColorOS operating system.
"Oppo understands India as their key market and aims to reach out to the large talent pool of innovators, developers and partners," the company said in a statement.Oppo India Vice President R&D Tasleem Arif recently told ET that the company is closely looking for start-ups to incubate and develop services and applications that the Chinese handset maker could integrate with its own Color OS 7.
“There are a few startups that we have shortlisted and we believe these services if you integrate into our platform will lead to better user experience. Now, we are closely working," Arif said.Huawei and Honor's smartphone sales have drastically come down following the May ban in India. However, the company is still targeting a 10% market share for the Honor brand in 2020. "We are working on the roadmap for India," Peng said.Navkender Singh, research director at IDC India said that Huawei's intent is good but their story breaks at the retail front. "There will be a breakdown of the conversation that Huawei or Honor devices will have OS and app store issue. It is going to be very tough for Huawei/Honor to sell the phone based on their own suite. They would need to double down on efforts for India," he added.
"In case they have to go ahead with Harmony OS and trade war issue remains unresolved, they have to rely heavily on developers more than ever before," Tarun Pathak, associate director at Counterpoint Research said.Pathak added that Huawei needs to maintain its installed base and with Hardware being commoditized it will focus on services through certain apps.On Oppo's move to engage with developers, Pathak said that the new smartphone user is not someone who is very comfortable in English and hence we estimate that local vernacular content and apps will be the key for faster adoption. Global smartphone brands understand this trend and are likely to invest or focus on apps or services best suited to this target audience.Peng said that the Huawei partnership will allow Indian developers to get a good market share as they will get a chance to cater to Huawei's global customer base. "if they work with us closely, the cost to get new customers will low. Huawei is among the top three handset makers with a huge market share."Honor is also focusing on expanding its smart devices product portfolio, including smart TVs, smart audio devices and other IoT devices in India. Its parent brand, Huawei, is separately focusing on smart devices like smartwatches in India
Experts say the move is a part of Huawei's effort to build an alternative to Google's service suite, called Google Media Services (GMS), since there is uncertainty on the use of GMS on Huawei and Honor mobile phones following restrictions announced by the US government earlier this year. GMS includes Gmail, YouTube, Navigation, Google Drive and Maps.
Huawei's sub-brand Honor is in talks with 150 top apps in India to get them on its HMS or Huawei Media Services, Charles Peng, CEO, Huawei and Honor India, Consumer Business Group, told ET. "We have our own HMS and are trying to build a mobile ecosystem. Most of the key apps such as navigation, payments, gaming and messaging will be ready."Huawei's HMS will support smartphones that don't have access to Google's GMS. The executive said that Honor's latest phone will come with Google services. "Consumers won't see a difference between GMS and HMS. We are focusing on how to work with developers to offer a good customer experience. It is a challenge that we are trying to address," he said.
"Huawei HQ is in touch with China developers and the India developer base will help us in India as well as regions like Europe. In every country, we will focus on bringing top 100-150 apps to customers through HMS," Peng added.Huawei, which has around a million registered developers globally for HMS, is offering an incentive of up to $17,000 on the integration of apps with HMS in India through its $1-billion global fund, which was announced this year to develop its own mobile services suite similar to that of Google. "We will create an end to end business model with developers, content and service providers. We will provide value to them," Peng said.Oppo, on the other hand, is allocating $143 million in 2020 for supporting developers across the globe, including India to develop a "new intelligent service ecosystem" with developers and partners around its ColorOS operating system.
“There are a few startups that we have shortlisted and we believe these services if you integrate into our platform will lead to better user experience. Now, we are closely working," Arif said.Huawei and Honor's smartphone sales have drastically come down following the May ban in India. However, the company is still targeting a 10% market share for the Honor brand in 2020. "We are working on the roadmap for India," Peng said.Navkender Singh, research director at IDC India said that Huawei's intent is good but their story breaks at the retail front. "There will be a breakdown of the conversation that Huawei or Honor devices will have OS and app store issue. It is going to be very tough for Huawei/Honor to sell the phone based on their own suite. They would need to double down on efforts for India," he added.
"In case they have to go ahead with Harmony OS and trade war issue remains unresolved, they have to rely heavily on developers more than ever before," Tarun Pathak, associate director at Counterpoint Research said.Pathak added that Huawei needs to maintain its installed base and with Hardware being commoditized it will focus on services through certain apps.On Oppo's move to engage with developers, Pathak said that the new smartphone user is not someone who is very comfortable in English and hence we estimate that local vernacular content and apps will be the key for faster adoption. Global smartphone brands understand this trend and are likely to invest or focus on apps or services best suited to this target audience.Peng said that the Huawei partnership will allow Indian developers to get a good market share as they will get a chance to cater to Huawei's global customer base. "if they work with us closely, the cost to get new customers will low. Huawei is among the top three handset makers with a huge market share."Honor is also focusing on expanding its smart devices product portfolio, including smart TVs, smart audio devices and other IoT devices in India. Its parent brand, Huawei, is separately focusing on smart devices like smartwatches in India
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