The rollout of HMS can reasonably be regarded as a defensive action by Huawei, which is merely safeguarding its business in the wake of the U.S. trade ban. Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to fail to grasp its broader significance.
HMS marks not just a turning point for Huawei, but also for the entire IT industry in China.
In the past, China's IT enterprises operated within narrow bounds, playing a supplementary role, as dictated by Internet giants in developed countries. This model reserves the lion's share of profits for enterprises such as Google, and leaves up-and-comers such as Huawei scrambling for the leftovers. The rollout of HMS represents the first time that a company from the developing world has sought to overcome its ingrained disadvantages, and in the process, revolutionize the entire mobile service ecosystem.
Moreover, HMS is just a springboard for more ambitious endeavors. With the development of a proprietary mobile operating system, HarmonyOS, Huawei will have built an end-to-end ecosystem that encompasses every facet of mobile computing and development, from the device chipset, to the operating system, and app architecture. HMS will also reinforce the unique advantages inherent in HarmonyOS, enticing developers who are eager to venture into new, and potentially more fertile, terrain.
Related
Google's GMS Ecosystem Is Dominant, with Strong User Stickiness
Google was founded more than 20 years ago, and gradually ascended to become the top provider of Internet services, with the exception of a few fields, such as social software and short videos. It owns the dominant search engine and map services that have become fixtures in everyday life for billions of users. Even if Huawei's HMS were to introduce competitive third-party services, it would not dislodge Google in the short-term from its dominant perch.
Long-Term Investment Is Required to Attract Vendors Outside of China
The HMS ecosystem has been developing rapidly since its debut, just a few months ago. However, its user base is still small when compared with that of GMS. This should not come as a shock, as GMS has been around for 13 years, during which it has outlasted a litany of strong, deep-pocketed competitors, ranging from Microsoft's ill-fated Windows Phone ecosystem, to BlackBerry's software ecosystem. The rivalry between Huawei HMS and Google GMS will play out over the long haul, and Huawei's greatest assets are its patience and persistence.
Mobile Device Industry Will Be Divided
Despite its substantial differences, HMS does share one thing in common with GMS: Apps that are developed via HMS service APIs are unable to run on mobile devices that do not have the HMS framework installed. The inevitable result of HMS's ascendance, will be the division of the mobile device market into separate spheres. It's reasonable to speculate that there may be three ecosystems for Android-based mobile devices:
GMS: adopted by all mobile devices sold outside of the Chinese mainland, except for Huawei mobile devices
HMS: only adopted by Huawei mobile devices
Non-GMS/-HMS: adopted by all mobile devices sold in the Chinese mainland, except for Huawei mobile devices
It remains unclear if other leading brands, such as Samsung, Xiaomi, OPPO, and VIVO, will opt to have HMS preinstalled on their products. Thus far, only Huawei and Honor have announced their intention to use HMS, and the ecosystem is being designed accordingly.
In August 2019, Xiaomi, OPPO, and VIVO founded the Global Developer Service Alliance (GDSA), aiming to provide a unified portal connecting developers to the vendors' various app stores. On the GDSA registration platform, developers submit their apps, including Android installation-free apps, games, music, movie, books, magazines, and other digital content and services. Currently, GDSA services span nine countries and regions including major markets such as India, Indonesia, Russia, and Malaysia.
It's difficult to forecast the future relationship between HMS and GDSA; they might compete for the same terrain, or alternatively opt to join forces in competing against Google.
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This article is derived from a speech given at Huawei’s 2020 Global FSI Summit, a global ICT event hosted by Huawei that is focused on partnerships and trends in FSI. It was founded in 2013 and features thought leaders, consultants, and experts from the industry.
2020 is set to be a tough year. There have been unprecedented disruptions to all industries with workforces largely restricted to working from home. Yet, many companies in the Financial Services Industry (FSI) have still successfully managed to provide essential services to customers. Indeed, we have seen that a substantial number of financial institutions have made big strides in their use of digital technologies and digital functionalities, to better cope with the challenges of the pandemic. Many industry leaders have already shared their insights for accelerating industry digital transformation as well as improving industrial operations.
I would like to give you a brief introduction to the progress Huawei has already made in the finance industry. As things stand today, we have already worked with more than 1600 financial institutions, including 45 of the world’s top 100 banks, spanning across more than 60 countries.
2019 was a tough year for Huawei, but we managed to overcome the challenges, gaining the trust of our customers in the process. In 2019 alone, we added over 300 new global FSI customers, who chose Huawei as a trusted transformation partner, recognizing the competitive positioning of our products and the value they bring, regardless of external challenges. I would like to thank every Huawei customer for their interest and support.
Indeed, in 2019, we built or strengthened partnerships with leading banks, and insurers as well as securities houses in France, Italy, Singapore, Brazil, Turkey, India, and beyond. We were able to enhance the reliability and resilience of legacy IT systems and boost digital capabilities for customers. These typical success stories reflect the real-world capabilities and real-world value Huawei products provide. We have become an integral partner for global FSI customers for their digital transformation needs.
We are committed to building a robust ecosystem with our global partners, providing them with innovative solutions and helping customers accelerate digital transformation. With the increasing demand for cashless and smart finance, Huawei works closely with leading global partners to help banks improve digital capabilities, ensuring that more people have access to financial services.
The construction of this global ecosystem is one of our core focuses, and we’ve been working extremely hard on it. Our goal is to build a comprehensive ecosystem and provide more services globally through Huawei’s rapidly growing cloud services. For example, in the near future, an African bank will be able to use a Chinese or European AI partner’s outbound call service over cloud .
In China, banks are accelerating their digital transformation. Here, Huawei has played an active role and has become the largest digital transformation partner for China’s financial industry.
For instance, Huawei has helped leading Chinese banks complete the migration of massive data from traditional data warehouses to Huawei GaussDB platforms. This allows for the improved data processing and analytics capabilities specifically required in the mobile Internet era, further driving business innovation.
We are also working with leading banks to migrate their core credit card systems from a mainframe to an open distributed platform, with over 100 million customers involved. In addition to offering Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS), Huawei also takes part in the construction of cloud platforms for numerous large-scale banks.
In China, Internet tech giants possess unique competitive advantages as they explore disruptive FinTech applications, making competition from them in the financial sector extremely fierce. The competition and cooperation between these Internet giants and the Chinese financial industry has therefore been both unique and extremely interesting.
Of course, this year, this is all happening against the backdrop of COVID-19, with financial institutions around the world continuing to strive to ensure service continuity for customers. Huawei is doing the same.
We are customer-centric and committed to supporting our customers in Business Continuity Management (BCM), making the most of our global capabilities. Huawei has the global resources to efficiently respond to customer needs, providing urgent deliveries and enhanced digital support, for example, as well as ensuring the normal operation of data centers.
With the majority of technical experts working from home during the pandemic, the use of remote Proof of Concept (PoC) tools has emerged. To date, we have successfully completed over 500 remote PoCs with global customers. Our innovative set-up allows customers to implement all configurations and complete load testing and functional testing, all without the need to leave their homes.
Huawei and Chinese financial institutions have also accumulated vast experience in adapting to remote offices and the closure of a significant number of physical branches. Over the past three months, we have hosted online exchanges with over 50 financial clients from our headquarters in Shenzhen and offices overseas. This has allowed us to share our experiences and exchange views on the global financial picture.
Looking ahead to the future, uncertainty is the biggest problem as we look to enter the post-pandemic era. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) World Economic Outlook, the global economy will shrink sharply, by at least 3% in 2020, a larger contraction than the 2008–2009 financial crisis. Work, life, and business have all been profoundly affected, ushering in a “new normal.” We need to consider what this mean for financial institutions. How can we deal with such uncertainties?
Over the short term, global economic contraction will affect banks’ loan-loss reserves. Even with central bank intervention, the impact is likely to remain severe.
Twitter, a huge global company has announced that its employees can choose to work permanently from home if they prefer. However, banking has not made such a dramatic change. Overall, this is unsurprising in a sector traditionally viewed as conservative.
However, on the contrary, banking’s rapid embrace of digital strategies during these times belies that image. So, in wealth management for example, banks can and have offered consulting and transaction services digitally, allowing customers more time to look after their investments. As a result, wealth management has boomed and there has been a dramatic change in client behavior.
To underline the main point: we have found that digital technology is a critical way to address the impact of the pandemic. This digital space is where leading global financial institutions work their best amid the process of digital transformation. China Merchants Bank (CMB), for instance, has continued to efficiently issue large loans to corporate customers through a zero-contact process. Meanwhile, China Life held an online training live broadcast for over one million insurance agents. It is therefore abundantly clear: financial institutions with high-performing digital capabilities will thrive in the future.
As I have just said, we have had numerous exchanges online with numerous financial executives across the world. They all believe that remote work capabilities and business agility are particularly critical in the new normal. And we can surely all agree that financial institutions must move quickly into this digital world. It is further predicted that e-commerce, digital payments, and super apps will gain further traction and become major trends. Rapid changes must come with renewed models for Business Continuity Management (BCM) covering mobile offices, digital transformation, risk management, internal control processes, and more.
Simultaneously, digital transformation will be more effective with the well-timed introduction of new technologies including 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT), to accelerate the process. Early adopters will be able to convert today’s challenges into competitive advantages in the future and take a comfortable lead in the digital world.
The digital world will be based on mobility, with connectivity becoming exceedingly important: customers will need and demand full access to financial and non-financial services anytime, anywhere. 5G is not just an innovative connection point but also one that drives business innovations, to enable all-round customer experiences. In the future, powerful real-time connections must be ubiquitous, and 5G, IoT, and flexible networks are key technologies in delivering this.
We believe that mobile capacity will be the core capability of future banks. It will not only serve as a point of contact with clients, but also as an interface for internal operations and collaborations with partners. The mobile apps of banks will become a key operational platform. To support such a mobile-centric model requires new Information Technology (IT) architecture and key capabilities in 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and cloud. As a leader in these fields, Huawei is uniquely positioned to support the cloud transformation of financial institutions as well as build new connectivity capabilities, helping financial institutions improve agility and innovation
Mobile apps will be the main arena for future banks, with digital customer acquisition dictating app traffic. Banking apps will become the core platform for digital operations, and will turn into super apps by combining multiple services for all scenarios, creating an ecosystem.
Banks will therefore need to transform into mobile-centric IT architecture, including building mobile internet based on 5G technology, restructuring flexible cloud-based and distributed IT architecture, building AI-powered data platforms, and building agile micro-service architecture, open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) , and more.
Over the past ten years, we have gained a wealth of experience in the global financial industry. In particular, in the Chinese market, we have invaluable firsthand experience working with top banks undergoing digital transformation at the same time as they are competing with tech giants exploring FinTech disruptions to the industry. The rapid development in the mobile app era of these banks has also provided a great deal of insight. We are more than happy to share our experience and ecosystems with our customers and partners around the world, to enter the mobile digital world together.
Shenzhen, 23 December 2020 – Huawei earlier this month reaffirmed its commitment and support to help Chinese developers expand into overseas app markets, as well as wider cross-border expansion into the global market, at the HMS Go Global Ecosystem Alliance Summit. During the summit, developers learned about how Huawei’s initiatives and the HMS Go Global Ecosystem Alliance are helping developers overcome the key challenges for overseas market expansion – product localisation, policy consulting, local promotion to drive user acquisition, and monetisation.
The relatively mature and advanced development of China's mobile sector has simultaneously created opportunities for Chinese developers to expand overseas and incentivised global developers to enter the Chinese market. China accounted for 38% of the global consumer spend on mobile apps and saw almost 100 billion apps downloaded in 2019. But while these numbers reflect the tremendous success of Chinese developers and the market, developers from both sides are still pinned down by pain points such as user acquisition and policy requirements regardless of the direction they are expanding towards.
“Huawei firmly believes that expanding beyond borders is the key for many Chinese developers to increase their mobile applications’ user numbers and revenue, and continue the growth trajectory in overseas markets,” said Mr Wang Yanmin, President of Global Partnerships and Eco-Development at Huawei Consumer Business Group. “HMS Go Global Ecosystem Alliance was formed in September this year to realise this vision. We hope to gradually build up the Go Global Service Engine and global HMS ecosystem to enable more Chinese developers to expand their mobile applications across borders, and experience success abroad.”
Huawei provides extensive support for developers looking to expand beyond their home markets
To help developers navigate and successfully launch their apps in overseas market, Huawei and the HMS Go Global Ecosystem Alliance will offer overseas developers all-rounded assistance, from policy consulting, to product localisation, to support with user acquisition and monetisation.
Among the wide array of measures provided by Huawei and the alliance, is the HMS Core Localisation Service Solution which provides a full-cycle localisation service that touches on the entire spectrum of the development process, empowering developers to align their apps with the local culture, lifestyle, taste and habits. Additionally, developers have access to an online compliance toolkit, which aggregates useful resources and information such as case studies and directory of accreditation companies, to help them navigate the myriad of laws and regulations in their targeted markets. Finally, developers can tap on AppGallery’s vast marketing resources to reach out to their audiences easily and effectively in overseas markets.
During the summit, Huawei also shared several case studies to highlight how ecommerce developers leveraged HMS core capabilities to facilitate their global expansion strategies through precision marketing, as well as enhancing the shopping and app experience.
For instance, Banggood, one of the largest cross-border ecommerce apps in South East China, collaborated with AppGallery in a multi-regional marketing campaign to achieve over 60,000 new downloads and 1,000 new users within three weeks. Another ecommerce app, JD.com, integrated HMS core capabilities with the app to offer users a “what you experience is what you can get” Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality shopping experience. This unique feature was a resounding success with customers – it led to nearly 20% increase in order conversion, as well as a 15% jump in average visit time.
HMS Go Global Ecosystem Alliance partners share insights on developers’ overseas expansion
While there are unparalleled opportunities in expanding to overseas app markets, developers need to understand the various regulatory considerations and uniqueness of the user base.
During the summit, HMS Go Global Ecosystem Alliance partners such as SHAREit, Mintegral, and NetDragon Websoft came together for a panel discussion where they shared insights on the various opportunities and challenges that developers faced when they enter foreign markets, particularly in the era of Globalisation 2.0.
The session also touched on the key differences between Globalisation 1.0 and 2.0. The panellists highlighted that while the key to success for businesses during the previous era was centred on developing their unique competitive edge within their respective field, brands will have to go the extra mile in the Globalisation 2.0 world. Brands will have to look outward beyond their respective fields and embrace collaboration to drive greater innovation and business growth. The panel shared that this was the original intention behind the alliance formation – for developers to onboard the HMS ecosystem and collaborate with each other while exploring overseas market expansion opportunities.
The webinar also invited Tom Rafferty, Regional Director, Asia for The Economist Intelligence Unit, to share valuable insights on market conditions, as well as challenges, opportunities, and risks for developers to expand overseas in a post-pandemic world.
During the session, Rafferty shared that Chinese firms are still ahead of the rest of the world in terms of meeting the needs of the digital consumers, and the epidemic is the perfect opportunity for developers to re-examine their strategies and opportunities to prepare for the future, particularly in Southeast Asian markets where opportunities are bountiful.
Huawei has an extensive user base in China as well as a deep understanding of its domestic app marketplace. The company is increasingly looking to leverage this expertise to help international developers gain a better understanding of the Chinese market, and working alongside to help them overcome obstacles, unlock the countless opportunities of launching an app in China.
For more information, please visit the HMS Go Global Ecosystem Alliance website at https://consumer.huawei.com/en/partners/goglobal/
AppGallery – One of the top three app marketplaces globally
All applications developed in collaboration with Huawei, along with thousands of other quality apps, are available on Huawei’s open and secure app distribution platform, AppGallery. One of the top three app marketplaces globally, AppGallery connects more than 500 million monthly active users throughout more than 170 countries and regions to Huawei’s smart and innovative ecosystem.
AppGallery provides users with more choice and better app discovery options, with thousands of apps across 18 categories, including news, social media, entertainment, and more.
https://forums.developer.huawei.com/forumPortal/en/forum/appgallery
Recently, some netizens found that the latest version of QQ 8.4.10 has been connected to HMS, which is faster for pushing QQ messages compared to the version without HMS.
There are always several applications that dictate the user's choice of phone and operating system.
According to statistics, there are typically around 40 applications that already cover most of the daily applications that are associated with the country and region. It is no exaggeration to say that these key applications will dictate the user's choice if a situation arises that requires the user to choose between the phone and the application. For example, an iPhone without WeChat installed is believed to be a hard sell in China.
The news of QQ adapting to HMS shows us Tencent's attitude towards HMS ecology. This attitude of Tencent is conducive to the construction of HMS ecology, as well as to Tencent's own development.
When the U.S. first began to suppress Huawei, many companies did not realize the U.S. intentions, and as the U.S. pressed Huawei step by step, Google began to prohibit Huawei from using GMS, and domestic mobile phone-related enterprises began to feel a certain threat. It wasn't until later, when overseas WeChat and Ali also began to meet resistance, that they really felt the threat of the US.
As everyone knows, everyone sees that the U.S. crackdown on Huawei is just the beginning, and the ultimate goal is to target our entire information industry, including, of course, application platforms.
Google cut off Huawei's GMS supply, making Huawei's overseas business extremely shrinking, and as a last resort, Huawei invested heavily in improving its HMS mobile phone ecosystem, in order to replace GMS in extreme cases and ensure the continuity of the mobile phone business. Huawei not only invested heavily, but also introduced a series of policies to encourage localized application development around the world in order to attract developers to the HMS ecosystem. At the same time, Huawei also organized the Songshan Lake Conference and completed the basic HMS ecology in just a few months.
At present, the number of registered developers in the HMS eco-system has reached 1.8 million worldwide, nearly double the 910,000 during last year's developer conference; the number of apps integrated with HMS Core has reached 96,000 worldwide, more than doubling; the number of overseas high-quality apps on Huawei's app marketplace (AppGallery) has increased from 6,000 last year to 73,000, AppGallery Has become the world's Top 3 app store, from January to August this year, a cumulative total of 261 billion times worldwide distribution of applications, helping different countries and regions of fine applications have the opportunity to reach 700 million Huawei users around the world.
In China, HMS is incomplete without WeChat adaptation. During the construction of HMS, many users are worried about BAT's attitude and whether it is willing to enter the HMS ecology.
In fact, to enter the HMS ecology is also conducive to the development of domestic mobile network application companies, can use HMS as their spare tire, this spare tire for the domestic Xiaomi, OPPP, Vivo and other mobile phone manufacturers of greater significance, and the final complete spare tire is the combination of Hong Meng and HMS.
For details about Huawei developers and HMS, visit the website.
HUAWEI Developer Forum | HUAWEI Developer
forums.developer.huawei.com
Thanks for sharing valuable information
Privacy and security is a key tenet of the Huawei Mobile Services (HMS), and Huawei puts a strong emphasis on ensuring that its various services – including HUAWEI Ads, HUAWEI AppGallery Connect, AppGallery, Petal Search, and more – achieves the highest level of privacy compliance and standards. As a testament to this dedication, HMS achieved the ePrivacyseal accreditation from ePrivacy back in 2020.
ePrivacy is one of the world’s leading organisation for certifying data security and privacy protection. The organisation applies high technical and legal standards in carrying out the tests forming part of the certification process, including adherence to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) from the European Union. In particular, the ePrivacyseal certification can only be achieved after an in-depth audit of a company's online and mobile products. The catalogue of criteria for certification is continuously being adapted to the interpretation of GDPR and other data protection laws, designed to ensure that companies are completely compliant with the regulations.
Image Source: https://www.eprivacy.eu/en/privacy-seals/eprivacyseal/
The ePrivacyseal certification involves a lengthy and extensive accreditation process to ensure compliance with various global data protection standards. The organisation experts conducted an in-depth audit of the various HMS services over a three-month period, examining each product in light of any applicable technical, organizational and legal requirements. Therefore, the ePrivacy certifications are an indisputable testament to Huawei’s commitment to providing compliant and trusted services through HMS.
Protecting user privacy remains a top priority for Huawei, and is a key tenet that is strictly enforced across the company’s various business units and subsidiaries. HMS is steadfast in its goal to serve its users while remaining compliant with the laws and regulations around the world. The company achieves this by not only integrating industry-leading security technologies, but also adopting a privacy-first mentality when approaching its product design. In protecting user privacy, Huawei has outlined four pillars of privacy – Transparency, Benefits to User, [SL1] Security, and Legal Compliance – that informs every single phase of its product development process.
For instance, Huawei employs local differential privacy technology to preserve the privacy of its users, which prevents original information about the app from being uploaded. This is done so by masking users’ individual data with statistical noise so that the uploaded information cannot be associated with users device. Relevant differential privacy patterns only emerge when individual data merged with the data of a large number of other users to average out the noise information. These patterns ensure that Huawei is unable to collect personal information that can identify individual users, meeting the requirements laid out by various global laws and regulatory processes.
In addition, HMS has obtained a significant number of privacy and security certifications recognised globally over the past few years. These include ISO/IEC 27001 and CSA STAR security certifications in 2015, as well as the ISO/IEC 27701, and ISO/IEC 27018 in 2019. HUAWEI ID also achieved the esteemed EuroPriSe certification back in 2020 while AppGallery Connect was recently accredited with multiple SOC privacy and security certifications in April this year.
Huawei believes privacy is a fundamental consumer right and its work on privacy will not just end there. Moving forward, the company will continue to invest in user data privacy protection, prioritising cybersecurity and privacy for all of its products and services. Huawei is determined to provide the utmost level of security for every aspect of the Huawei user experience using innovative and reliable technology.
For more information, please visit https://consumer.huawei.com/en/privacy/. You may also read the latest HMS Security Technical White Paper here.
[SL1]Follows the naming convention of the whitepaper.