#Huawei phone chief wants to get back to making money for Google

Ten months ago Donald Trump effectively banned Huawei from doing business with the US. He placed it on an ‘entity list’, on the grounds that the company’s involvement with networks and technology made it a threat to US national security, a claim Huawei denies. Days later, Google announced it would comply, meaning it would block updates from existing phones and end access to the full version of Android and Google Mobile Services, write Sophie Charara and Jeremy White.

If Huawei had never been placed on the blacklist, the just-announced P40 phones would have the Google Assistant, Maps and the Play Store. Instead, they have Celia, TomTom and Huawei’s own App Gallery.

For Richard Yu (pictured), CEO of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group, the trade ban has been a major challenge, forcing the company to drastically expanded Huawei’s masterplan when it comes to phones, voice assistants and their bid to rule the smart-home universe.

WIRED: Now you’ve built your own app store, will you ever go back to Google?

Richard Yu: In the past we’ve brought huge revenue and profit to US companies like Google and we have been very good partners. So, at Huawei, we still hope that we can continue to cooperate with Google. Hopefully we can get the license from the US government. We are open. In the interests of the value of those US companies, they should… I hope they can give us the license.

We want to use all of Google’s services and to use the Play Store as the primary choice with Huawei Mobile Services to offer more choice. We want to stay on the Android platform.

WIRED: When will Huawei’s App Gallery have everything that phone users in the UK and Europe expect to see?

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Richard Yu: Huawei Mobile Services and the App Gallery were developed very quickly and it’s getting better. There are more and more popular apps on the App Gallery now, but, yes, you have some gaps for sure. In time, all these can be fixed. We need one or two years.

WIRED: Tell us about your ‘one-click deployment’ apps partnership with Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo?

Richard Yu: We are considering that, but we still hope that we can get the US license and we still want to cooperate with Google. But if we cannot get it, then we will think about that. We don’t want to destroy the value of US companies with these kinds of partnerships, that’s why we’re not doing that.

WIRED: What was the thinking behind launching Celia?

Richard Yu: We already have the ‘Hi Celia’ voice assistant in China, and before the US ban we had no plan to bring this to a global market. Now with the ban, we have to. Celia is just in the beginning [compared to rivals], but it’s improving very, very quickly. We will launch it in more and more countries, with local languages and integration with local services.

WIRED: Why haven’t you joined the smart home alliance with Apple, Google, Amazon and Zigbee?

Richard Yu: Our Huawei HiLink is an open standard and we did it two years earlier than the other global standards like the one from several US companies last year. So we are open on this, but we want to continue to support our own standard. We are considering whether to support the other standard but the US ban limits us. So we worry that if we switch to [Project Connected Home Over IP] and then something happens, then we cannot use it. And our standard is better than theirs, so why would we give up ours?

WIRED: How much longer can cameras be the battleground for smartphone innovation?

Richard Yu: I think for at least the next one or two years. To be honest, it’s also very expensive. We spend a huge amount of money on that, we invest a lot. The spend on the [P40] camera is $100 [per phone], maybe even more than $100. That’s too expensive to be honest. The material cost is too high.

For the next two years, the camera is very important, but after those two years we won’t stop. But I think it’s not just the camera but also the more time the consumer spends with the phone, they need longer battery life, larger screens and more protection for your eyes. But if you have a larger screen and you want to fit it in your pocket and your hand, then you need a foldable phone or VR.

WIRED: When will folding phones cost about the same as regular phones?

Richard Yu: I guess that we would need more than a year; maybe one and a half or two years. The cost in that category is very high; we are losing money. The costs are so intensive, you cannot believe it, you cannot make a profit. But the market demand [for the Mate Xs] is huge. We are continuing to increase our manufacturing to increase the volume of shipments.

WIRED: How has the coronavirus crisis affected Huawei’s smartphone business?

Richard Yu: We have the coronavirus and the US ban, the two together - but coronavirus is a challenge for everyone. I think we can do better than the other companies. We were manufacturing the P40 from the end of last year, from December through to March. Our supply chain is recovering very quickly in China.

For example, last month in February, most factories in China closed, but at Huawei we discussed solutions to prevent the spread with the local government, such as masks for our workers, improving the cleaning of eating [facilities] and all the other facilities, to avoid the transmission of the coronavirus. All our phones had the software to do the health check. So, in February, manufacturing shut down but we were still open in many Huawei factories. Almost the whole of China wasn’t working last month, but we were still working; some in the office, some working from home.