Going global! What problems can Huawei's HMS Global Ecosystem Alliance solve for developers?

Recently, at HDC 2020 (Huawei Developer Conference), Wang Yanmin, President of Huawei Consumer Business Global Ecosystem Development Department, delivered a speech and introduced the latest developments of HMS (Huawei Mobile Services).

With the support of 1.8 million developers worldwide, the HMS ecosystem has experienced rapid growth: more than 96,000 applications have integrated HMS Core, AppGallery has 490 million active users worldwide, and AppGallery has distributed 261 billion applications from January to August 2020, making it the world's third largest mobile application ecosystem. In one year, the open capabilities of HMS Core 5.0 have grown from 14 kits to 56 kits, and the number of APIs has jumped from 885 to 12,981, covering seven major areas, quickly forming a differentiated innovation advantage.

At the same time, Huawei has also joined hands with a number of partners to establish the HMS Ecosystem Overseas Alliance, which accelerates the expansion of new opportunities for global developers by providing developers with rich marketing resources in the business and operations fields, multi-channel brand exposure and user reach, preferential developer revenue sharing models and advertising resource support.

Zhang Zhe, Director of Huawei's Global Ecosystem Business Development Department, and Zhang Li, Deputy Director, interpreted the background, purpose and significance of the HMS Ecosystem Overseas Alliance and the HMS Overseas Capability Engine from multiple perspectives.

Zhang Zhe (left), Director of Huawei's Global Ecosystem Business Development Department, and Zhang Li (right), Deputy Director of Huawei's Global Ecosystem Business Development Department

Current Status of Ecological Development Department

Huawei's Global Ecosystem Business Development Department was established in 2019, but the specific announcement date was February 24, 2020. Huawei first confirmed it to the media after Honor announced the overseas launch of the first smartphone equipped with Huawei HMS, the V30. This business department belongs to the Consumer BG among Huawei's four major BGs.

Zhang Zhe said that with the efforts of more than 400 people over the past year, the development of Huawei's ecological business has achieved results beyond expectations. The listing rate of the top 3000 applications necessary for overseas mobile phone sales has exceeded 90%, and only more than 200 applications have not yet been listed on the Huawei App Market. In the early days of the department, it was mainly aimed at overseas markets and served terminal sales. Now, as the environment continues to change, the mission of the Global Ecological Business Development Department will also be adjusted in the future.

Helping developers go global

Today, Huawei HMS is no longer satisfied with just serving its own mobile phones. As Zhang Zhe said, the current Global Ecosystem Business Development Department is more responsible for building a bridge between domestic and foreign APP developers. Zhang Zhe also said that the Global Ecosystem Business Development Department is positioned as the middle platform engine, based on Huawei's open capabilities, to provide partners with more innovations in business models, experiences, and business development.

Zhang Zhe summarized the three major challenges facing developers going overseas: localization, compliance, and promotion. Huawei has experience in local deployment, local promotion, and compliance in more than 170 countries, and can provide a lot of help to partners. Zhang Zhe especially mentioned the issue of compliance, such as the various requirements in Europe, including the Red Flag Principle, the Safe Harbor Principle, GDPR, etc. Huawei can share with partners the pitfalls and mines that have been stepped on and avoided, and help partners avoid risks in advance.

What capabilities does Huawei have to build bridges?

To build a good bridge, you must first have strong skills. Huawei's strength comes from its products, but also from years of deep technical development. As a hardware manufacturer, Huawei has been deeply involved in the world for more than 30 years. All overseas promotion, channels, compliance and even cultural understanding and adaptation are things that developers have no time to take care of. The HMS Ecosystem Overseas Alliance can help everyone achieve this.

When talking about how to get partners to switch from GMS (Google Mobile Services) to HMS, Zhang Zhe confidently stated that first of all, Huawei has a very large base of existing mobile phone users overseas, which is a huge distribution channel. Any partner needs to consider this. Taking banks as an example, they need to consider the continuity of services, so they cannot do without HMS to continue to serve existing customers. For example, game companies need to consider user coverage and can also cooperate with HMS. At the same time, Huawei mobile phones have a better brand image and a higher ARPU value, so they will still cooperate with HMS. "When we communicate with partners, it is not as difficult as imagined to get them to join the Huawei ecosystem. There are many ways to jump to cooperation." Zhang Zhe said.

Secondly, there must be real hard work. The first phase of the Huawei Overseas Alliance Ecological Fund rewards billions of US dollars. Developers don’t have to worry about investment. For example, Huawei’s "Star Plan", which has been running for many periods, is a support plan launched by Huawei to help partners, innovate digital services in all scenarios, and provide terminal traffic and resource support for developers. At present, HMS is still in the support period, so Huawei has given sufficient preferential conditions.

Zhang Zhe also said that rewards are only one aspect. Many developers value Huawei's attitude more, such as opening more codes to customers, developing a wish list function, where users can add apps they want to use but have not yet been put on the shelves to their wish list, and other such values ​​of long-term cooperation.

Third, you need to have enough patience. It took Huawei five years to shift from 2B to 2C. In building an ecosystem, we also use the same logic of building a stronghold and fighting a slow battle, and we must take every step carefully. Over the years, Huawei's business development has not adopted speculative techniques, but has truly enabled all partners to achieve their goals. Only in this way can we maintain a long-term foundation and continue to innovate.

Fourth, a more open mindset. From what Richard Yu said in his speech, "Every developer is a spark that Huawei wants to gather," we can see that Huawei's determination to open up has never changed. Zhang Li also said, "Whether it is Chinese applications going overseas or even overseas applications coming to China, HMS can provide the most open partnership."

Transformation from hardware to services    

Huawei has actually transformed many times, and its success is obvious to all. However, how to transform into an ecosystem is also a challenge faced by Zhang Zhe. Zhang Zhe frankly said that he had to change his way of doing things and his perspective from hardware to ecosystem. In the past, Huawei integrated product development learned the IBM development process, but now whether it needs to be suitable for software and ecosystem cooperation is also worth repeated adjustments.

Zhang Zhe mentioned a change, that is, most people in the new department are born after 1995, full of youth and passion, and like an Internet company, all workstations are together, with no sense of distance at all. "Since the establishment of the Development Department, the adjustment of human resources, organizational design, personnel structure, and changes in the way everyone works have become more and more like an Internet company," said Zhang Zhe.

Zhang Li also said that the know-how and experience of smart hardware can often enable the Internet to have new ideas. All software and scenarios are based on hardware. Now Huawei has a stronger foundation and advantage in ecological construction with the combination of software and hardware.    

Where does Huawei's confidence in ecological construction come from? Zhang Zhe particularly emphasized that Huawei has extremely strong strategic patience. Once the company decides to invest in strategy, the policy will not change easily, even if there are sacrifices and losses. This is a manifestation of Huawei's spirit and a solid guarantee that partners can work together to move towards the future.