Huawei hosted an international media roundtable in Shenzhen on October 3, 2026, where Richard Yu, Executive Director, Chairman of the Investment Review Board, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Consumer BG, detailed the company's consumer business strategy and HarmonyOS ecosystem. The event, reported by Media OutReach Newswire, highlighted Huawei's continuous innovation and technological breakthroughs that are reshaping its competitive position.
Yu, who joined Huawei in 1993 and has led the consumer business for over a decade, emphasized the vision of delivering a seamless AI life experience across five key scenarios: HIMA-powered Smart Travel, HarmonyOS Office, Smart Home, Fitness & Health, and Entertainment. He described this as the long-term strategy for Huawei's consumer business over the next 10 years. Central to this vision is Huawei's massive investment in research and development. Between 2007 and 2025, the company invested more than CNY1.8 trillion into R&D, increasing from roughly 10% of annual revenue in early years to over 20% recently. This spending has translated into robust core capabilities, extensive intellectual property, and a vast patent portfolio, enabling breakthroughs in technological innovation.
The latest Mate 90 series smartphones, powered by the Kirin 9050 Pro chip, exemplify these advances. The device's overall performance is 31% higher than the previous generation. Huawei designed the Balong modem, image sensor processor, mobile security processor, Lingxi CPU, Maleoon GPU, and the NPU based on its Da Vinci architecture for AI processing. These components offer higher energy efficiency and improved system-level performance. Yu acknowledged limited access to advanced semiconductor processes, but Huawei recently unveiled a breakthrough: the LogicFolding technology under the Tau Scaling Law, introduced by He Tingbo, head of Huawei's Semiconductor Business Department, in May. This technology vertically stacks logic layers of chips and restructures circuit layout through inter-layer high-density interconnect to shorten critical paths and reduce latency. Adopted on the Kirin 9050 Pro, it enables the Mate 90 series to run a 30B MoE on-device AI model, showcasing strong AI processing power.
In the AI domain, Yu discussed the Ascend compute foundation, openPangu large models, AI capabilities for intelligent driving, and HarmonyOS Celia. Huawei is also using AI to improve operations and maintenance of communications network equipment. The company's vision is to combine AI computing power with domestic open-source large models to help enterprises and industries worldwide become more productive. HarmonyOS, developed since 2019, now runs on more than 90 million devices, including smartphones, PCs, and tablets, with that figure expected to hit 100 million by the end of the year. The ecosystem boasts over 450,000 apps and services, 11 million global registered developers, and more than 23,000 app innovation partners. Yu expressed thanks to partners and developers and noted that Huawei is considering gradually bringing HarmonyOS to the global market.
Globalization remains a key topic. Yu mentioned past collaborations with companies from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, delivering significant business value. Despite challenges since 2019, Huawei relied on homegrown technologies to design its own operating system and develop basic tools and software, establishing a domestic supply chain. In 2023, Huawei resumed domestic manufacturing of smartphone chips. With these chips and HarmonyOS, and by leveraging China's domestic supply chain, materials, and process nodes, Huawei has basically eliminated its dependence on US technologies. While Huawei's global smartphone market share was once No. 1, it now sells only several million units outside China annually. However, Yu revealed that Huawei is trying to return to overseas markets step by step. In wearables, Huawei is No. 1 in market share both in China and globally. TWS earphones are growing fast and have reached No. 1 in many countries. HarmonyOS-based tablets are performing strongly, and CPE mobile routers are well received in many regions outside China, helping connect remote and rural areas.
During the Q&A, Yu confirmed that more phones will use LogicFolding chips in the future. He noted that production capacity for advanced semiconductors in China still cannot meet rapidly growing demand, and Huawei's Ascend chips for AI also use such capacity. However, Huawei has developed a requirement plan covering smartphone chip needs. The sharp price increase for memory components over the past two years has somewhat limited smartphone sales volume, but Yu said capacity is generally sufficient to meet market shipment needs. He expressed hope that production capacity will ramp up in China's semiconductor industry so Huawei can manufacture more advanced products for consumers in China and overseas. For the full Q&A session, readers can visit https://www.apmultimedianewsroom.com/multimedia-newsroom/continuous-innovation-securing-our-competitive-edge-through-technological-breakthroughs.
