Huawei postpones developer conference amid coronavirus, in the setback as it seeks to build an app ecosystem
Huawei Technologies is the latest company to cancel an important live function due to the fears for the coronavirus. The Chinese tech giant said it would adjourn its annual developer meeting and substitute it with a live stream.
The Huawei Development Conference 2020, a significant component of its strategy to create a new environment for apps to save on losing Google under a trade ban in the US, will be postponed until March 27-28, 2020, and presented through live streaming considering the current limitations to mitigate the coronavirus spread.
The company said in a statement issued on Tuesday that “the health and safety of all the attendees of the Huawei Developer Conference 2020 are of great importance to us".
As of Wednesday, the dangerous coronavirus which began in Wuhan, China, has led to more than 2000 deaths. Live streaming of launching of products and occasions has quickly become an alternative method for tech firms at a time when the outbreak of the coronavirus has put a temporary stop to the possibility of large groups of people
This year’s MWC Barcelona edition, the biggest mobile sector gathering in the world, saw a cancellation less than two weeks before its planned kick off on February 24, after key exhibitors pulled out due to the coronavirus and health challenges
The event for Huawei developers in the previous year attracted over 5000 people world-wide. It offered an essential venue for the giant Chinese tech attempts to create its environment to substitute the services of Google, which discontinued when the firm was placed on a US trade blacklist last May.
At the 2019 developer conference, Huawei officially launched its operating system Harmony, saying that moving apps from Android would be quite straightforward. Still, it would love to maintain the use of Android OS from Google on smartphones.
Richard Yu Chengdong, chief executive of Huawei’s consumer business group, told the attendees at the beginning of the conference that "Harmony OS from Huawei is ready for smartphones at any moment."
In September last year, Huawei postponed the sales of its newly produced Mate 30 smartphone in Europe, the biggest market for the company outside China, because the gadgets could not utilize Google apps and services under the US ban.
However, it opted to concentrate on selling the Mate 30 models to Chinese consumers and subsequently gaining more market share in comparison to other Chinese vendors of Android handsets in the largest smartphone market in the world.
Honor president, George Zhao, wrote in a Facebook post that the Huawei budget sub-brand, Honor, plans to introduce its newest 9X Pro handset during a live streaming event next Monday.
Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi became the first manufacturer to host a solely online prototype product launch last week. Other key brands such as Oppo sub-brand Realme and Blackshark from Xiaomi have also implemented an online launch for their new products.
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