Chinese telecom giant Huawei said on Monday it wanted to enter the smart vehicle sector and improve its in-house operating system for its smartphones in order to face US sanctions.
Considered the world leader in 5G technology, the group has found itself at the center of the Sino-US trade war, amid technological rivalry and suspicions of espionage emitted by Washington against the private company.
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The administration of former President Donald Trump has banned American companies from doing business with Huawei, thus cutting off the supply of the Chinese group of essential components for its products - in particular its smartphones.
American sanctions
In this context, the CEO of the company, Eric Xu, said Monday that it plans to invest a billion dollars in the design of systems for electric vehicles or using artificial intelligence.
He said that the development of these new products would be done in collaboration with Chinese car manufacturers.
According to Eric Xu, Huawei also plans to expand into the IT sector cloud ( "
cloud
"), software, or mobile applications tailored to future ultrafast connections 5G.
"
With these adjustments to our portfolio, we are confident that we will be able to survive,
" Xu told industry analysts at a meeting at Huawei's headquarters in Shenzhen (southern China).
In addition to the sanctions imposed on the Chinese group, the United States is also putting pressure on its allies to dissuade them from using Huawei's services for their 5G networks.
Improvement of the operating system
The Chinese group has quantified at least 10 billion dollars (9.1 billion euros) the losses caused so far by the American measures.
And the new administration of President Joe Biden, which took office in January, has not yet expressed its intention to loosen the grip on Huawei.
The Chinese group is the world's largest supplier of equipment for telecom networks.
Huawei is one of the world's leading smartphone manufacturers but has seen sales decline amid difficulties obtaining components.
Read also: Huawei: record net profit in 2020, but sales decline
Prevented by US sanctions from installing Android on its phones, the Chinese group also announced Monday its intention to improve its home operating system.
But industry experts believe it will be difficult to create a serious competitor against the overwhelming Android (from Google) and iOS (from Apple).
