Winston Eavis, Huawei marketing director for UK and Ireland (pictured), predicted hundreds of millions of users would stick with the company’s smartphones as it rolled out its latest HarmonyOS 2.0, but conceded capturing lost market share will be a long-term challenge.

The company unveiled the updated platform and a number of new products at an event in London today (2 June), during which Eavis explained the company had begun deploying HarmonyOS 2.0 on tens of millions of smartphones in China before making it available globally.

He explained the main premise behind the system was to ensure Huawei products including smartphones, TVs and kitchen appliances would be able to use the same OS to deliver a seamless experience for users.

Huawei’s drive around software comes as its global smartphone market share plummets due to US restrictions on the company and its Honor device unit, which it spun off in November 2020.

Eavis argued Huawei was leading the global smartphone market until it was “slightly curtailed”, with a huge factor being its inability to produce mass volumes.

He told Mobile World Live being able to produce previous levels of smartphone volume was a “little way off” and it was currently focusing on giving hundreds of millions of Huawei consumers the best experience it could.

“We have the hope and expectation that, as they are doing at the moment, they will stick with us and their next smartphone will be a Harmony smartphone.”

Product launches
The headliner was its latest smartwatch series, the Watch 3 and Watch 3 Pro, both of which will run the latest HarmonyOS.

Huawei said it worked to improve battery life, bringing into play features including sleep tracking in addition to two modes for GPS navigation, a skin temperature monitor, enhanced health features and more workout modes.

The company also updated its headphone line with Freebuds 4, a new MateView tablet and two monitors designed for gaming and remote working, respectively.