Major smartphone makers are following Apple and Google into the smartphone trend of 2017: artificial intelligence.
LG’s G6 could feature Google Assistant, Samsung said its Galaxy S8 will feature its own AI assistant, and Huawei’s Mate 9 is the first phone with Amazon’s Alexa.
(Photo credit: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg)
AI ambitions
Huawei said they will have an AI-focused “Superphone” in 2020—just a year before their goal to be the world’s top smartphone maker. The Chinese tech giant has been sitting at No. 3 since last year, behind Samsung and Apple.
The Chinese company said they are not releasing further information about what AI its “Superphone” will have, but whatever it is, AI will surely be a critical factor for Huawei’s push to the top spot.
But despite publicly announcing their AI ambitions, there is little that’s known about what the tech giant is actually doing with AI—that is, before the Mate 9 was released.
Mate 9
Launched in the U.S. last month, Huawei’s Mate 9 was successful and recognized for its AI integration in the flagship smartphone.
“The Mate 9 features a Machine Learning Algorithm to ensure the handset continues running fast and smooth rather than slowing down over time as smartphones generally tend to do,” explains Shao Yang, president of strategy marketing at Huawei’s consumer business group.
Machine learning can track trends and behavioral patterns, making the device more efficient by correctly anticipating its usage. “This is important, and is actually a critical feature of the Mate 9,” says Ben Stanton, an analyst at Canalys.
Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group, presents the new Huawei Mate 9 during the Huawei Global Product Launch in Munich, Germany, on November 3, 2016. (Photo credit: Christof Stache/AFP/Getty Images)
The Mate 9 was also the first smartphone with Amazon’s Alexa. This cloud-based voice assistant helps users perform everyday tasks, like checking the news or controlling smart homes, and Huawei is in an advantageous position to use Alexa compared to most rivals.
“[The Alexa partnership] is possible because Huawei doesn’t have a service-driven agenda,” says Stanton. “It doesn’t matter if Alexa on Mate 9 pushes users towards Amazon Prime services, because Huawei doesn’t have a competing service. Apple and Google do. Huawei can therefore reap the benefits of voice interaction with relatively low investment.”
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AI success?
Huawei’s Yang says the company has been working with telecom carriers for user retention and network maintenance in the field of machine learning. “In the artificial intelligence domain, we have recently made breakthroughs in deep learning and machine translation,” said Yang. Particularly for the AI application adopted in the Mate 9, Yang claims Huawei has made technological breakthroughs in various areas such as sensor algorithms, computer vision, search engine and semantic understanding.
But despite the breakthroughs, Huawei still has a long way to go. “For Huawei, [AI] is still at the infancy stage,” says Xiaohan Tay, a senior analyst at IDC. In general, AI algorithms are improved by feeding huge amounts of data. But Huawei, being a hardware company, doesn’t have this data, she said.
One way Huawei could get access to data is to work with fellow Chinese tech giant Tencent, says Tay, which owns WeChat—China’s most popular messaging app.
Marathon
Huawei has a long road ahead, but playing a long game is just what the tech giant excels at, especially compared to Chinese smartphone rivals like Oppo and Xiaomi.
They don’t break down their research and development spending, but Huawei is among the top tech companies spending the most on R&D.
“Innovation is a marathon,” says Huawei’s Yang. “So each year, we dedicate at least 10% of our sales revenue to R&D.” Over the last 10 years, Huawei said they invested more than $38 billion in total.
AI will become essential for smartphones this year, and Huawei is able to keep improving its AI by investing billions every year, something Oppo and Xiaomi can’t match or simply copy.
Huawei may be able to hold on to the No. 3 spot by keeping its Chinese rivals at bay, but snagging the top spot with AI is unlikely based on R&D spending.
Samsung, the world’s top smartphone maker, spends even more than Huawei. In 2015, Huawei invested $9.2 billion into R&D, whereas Samsung easily dwarfed that with $14.1 billion in global R&D spending, which, according to Strategy&, is the most any tech company is spending.
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