Upgrades to EMUI 11 improve experiences

Telecommunications company Huawei Technologies launched the EMUI 11, the latest version of its operating system for smartphones and tablets, during the three-day Huawei Developer Conference held last week in Dongguan, Guangdong province.

The system, based on distribution technology adopted in the company's computer operating system HarmonyOS, can realize the connectivity among electronic devices and equipment related to the internet of things, according to the company.

It has also brought other new features to users, including improved multi-screen collaboration, user experiences designed based on human factors engineering research, and privacy safety. It supports instant translation in text and pictures and provides better services for audio-video creations, the company said.

Some 10 types of Huawei smartphones are being upgraded with the system, starting on Sept 10, Cnbeta information news portal reported.

Wang Chenglu, president of software department, consumer business group at Huawei, estimated during the conference that some 90 percent of Huawei smartphones will be upgraded with EMUI 11. HarmonyOS is expected to be installed as early as next year.

The number of EMUI 11 users is expected to reach 200 million and they will be given priority to upgrade to HarmonyOS, Wang added.

The company said it has dedicated itself to building a reliable, open and fair industrial ecosystem, providing users with diverse experiences.

Supported by 1.8 million software developers, Huawei Mobile Services, Huawei's version of Google Mobile Services, has embraced brisk growth.

It features HMS Core, a developers' platform with a cluster of 96,000 apps, and AppGallery with 490 million active users worldwide.

Huawei reported 261 billion downloads of apps from its AppGallery during the first eight months of this year. It makes it the third-largest software ecosystem after those of Google and Apple.

To date, some 73,000 overseas-developed apps are available at HMS Core 5.0, 10 times that of last year.

Zhang Ping'an, president of cloud service, Huawei consumer business group, told the conference that the company is sharing its innovation resources with all of its HMS Core 5.0 sections－app service, graphics, media, artificial intelligence, smart devices, security and system－open to developers around the world.

Huawei said it's also sharing its core software and hardware resources, which cover maps, search, payment, browser and advertisement service engines, as well as leading-edge technical tools for photography, augmented reality technology-backed mapping, telecommunication and privacy protection.

The move will help software developers in the sectors of video games, audio and video products, entertainment, e-commerce and socializing to create new apps, according to the company.

Within a year, the opening capacity of HMS Core 5.0 has expanded from 14 kits to 56 kits, and the number of its application programming interfaces has jumped from 885 to 12,981, Zhang said.

HMS apps have served users in more than 170 countries and regions. Of the apps, 10 each have a monthly active user number surpassing 50 million. Seven of them each have at least 100 million monthly active users, with the most popular registering 490 million users, said the company. Overseas sales of HMS-equipped smartphones has increased since May, a reflection of HMS' popularity among foreign users, Zhang added.

In a bid to help local developers integrate into the global market, Huawei is building new joint labs in Germany, Poland and Russia, and five global developer service centers are under construction in Romania, Russia, Egypt, Mexico and Malaysia, said a company statement.

Huawei ranked as the second-largest smartphone manufacturer in the world in terms of shipments last year, with 240 million units rolling out its plants, according to Yu.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, its sales of smartphones maintained momentum. Its deliveries reached 105 million units worldwide in the first half of 2020. Over the past quarter this year, the company accounted for more than half of the domestic smartphone market, Yu said.