Huawei UK Consumer Business Group MD Anson Zhang (pictured) hailed the company’s recent efforts in attracting more users to its Mobile Services platform, and committed to continue its push with more investments.

Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) is a suite of products designed to offer consumers an alternative to Google’s offerings, following a US ban which prevents the vendor accessing Google’s Android apps and services. This spurred into investment in its own software, including an app gallery, cloud and video services, and a mobile browser.

HMS gained a million more users in the UK since January, with the total now standing at 5 million, 2 million of which used its Mobile Services app gallery to download apps, Zhang told Mobile World Live.

He claimed that “monthly active user rates have increased rapidly”.

In January, the vendor committed to invest £20 million into UK- and Republic of Ireland-based app developers, to stoke interest in Huawei AppGallery and its own mobile operating system Harmony OS. Zhang said the company also increased R&D headcount at its headquarters “to support the faster development of Huawei AppGallery”.

Zhang said Huawei will “continually invest into Huawei AppGallery” as smartphones continue to be sold in European markets, adding app developers are now “more confident” to work with the vendor.

Ecosystem experience
He added the development of Mobile Services is part of Huawei’s overall strategy to leverage AI and 5G to create a seamless experience for end users, across multiple devices. This will in turn aid the company in achieving ambitions to become the largest global smartphone manufacturer by shipments.

“If we don’t have the capability to provide the ecosystem experience for end users it will be very hard for us to be number one in smartphones,” said Zhang.