Chinese telecoms giant Huawei Technologies revealed its strategy to help businesses in the UK and Ireland increase users and build revenues at its Developer Day Conference in London on Thursday.
Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) aims to become the third-largest mobile ecosystem in the world and currently has 4m users in the UK, with a further 600m across over 170 countries, including 68m across Europe, figures show.
Numerous major companies, including 18 media, 9 banking and 12 high street retailers, attended the conference to learn about the platform. 24 core kits were also launched to provide businesses and developers access to open developer kits to facilitate integrating programmes into Huawei's App Gallery.
The tech giant also announced £20m in investments to promote UK and Irish app developers on the new platform, as well as an further £20,000 to app makers uploading their projects to the Huawei App Gallery by 31 January.
Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei's Consumer Business Group, presented the global plan in Munich last September, which totals $3bn in foreign investments from the Beijing-based company to date.
68 percent of Huawei consumers have already expressed interest in HMS, citing a desire to protect personal information as a top concern, according to the Chinese tech firm.
HMS offers kits to developers based on several categories, including Wallet, Drive and Health kits, in addition to mapping and location, scanning and awareness, and analytics and account management kits.
Investments to Show Commitment and Support to the UK
Anson Zhang, managing director of Huawei UK's Consumer Business Group, said that the Chinese tech firm was pledging £20m in investments to show commitment and support to the UK and Irish markets, as well as building "an outstanding ecosystem together".
"Ultimately, we envision an all-scenario intelligent consumer experience for the future of Huawei Mobile Services and will provide businesses and developers with the opportunity to reach new audiences, expand and monetise, as they prepare for the fully connected world," Zhang said.
Author and thought leader Peter Hinssen said that consumers wanted an "increasing amount of control over their data" and that vendors should "align" their products and services to do so.
He added: "With the Huawei Developer Program and the continually evolving Huawei Mobile Services, businesses now have the opportunity to use innovative applications that have consumers’ desires at the heart."
Huawei Mobile Services is a substantial expansion of its digital product portfolio and follows plans in August to launch its Google Maps alternative in a bid to distance the company from US technologies amid the US trade war on China, namely after the Trump administration's decision to place the Chinese firm and over 70 others on an entities list in May last year.
Huawei's 'Map Kit' service allows developers to build apps based on the company's platform, which was hailed as a Google alternative offering "real-time" traffic conditions as well as augmented-reality mapping functions.