by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Markets, SMEs, Technology
By Gokul Bhagabati,
Berlin : Chinese tech giant Huawei on Friday unveiled the world’s first commercial 7nm (nanometre) chipset Kirin 980 which is believed to be the most powerful smartphone SoC (system-on-a-chip) equipped with Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities.
Huawei Consumer Business Group CEO Richard Yu announced the chipset, based on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturer Company’s (TSMC) 7nm process, in his keynote address on the opening day of the IFA 2018 here.
Compared to the previous generation 10nm process, the 7nm process delivers 20 per cent improved SoC performance and 40 per cent more efficiency, said Huawei which surpassed Apple to become the second-largest global smartphone seller behind Samsung in the second quarter of this year.
“Last year, we showed the world the potential of on-device AI with the Kirin 970 and this year, we’ve designed an all-round powerhouse that not only features outstanding AI capabilities, but also brings cutting-edge raw performance to consumers,” Yu told the gathering, adding that the new SoC is equipped with dual NPU (Neural Processing Unit).
“The Kirin 980 is the ultimate engine to power the next-generation productivity and entertainment applications,” Yu added.
The TSMC 7nm process technology enables Kirin 980 to pack 6.9 billion transistors within a “1 square cm die size”, up by 1.6 times from the previous generation.
The Kirin 980 is also the first SoC to embed Cortex-A76 cores, which are 75 per cent more powerful and 58 per cent more efficient compared to their previous generation.
In an octa-core configuration, the CPU in Kirin 980 is comprised of two high-performance Cortex-A76 cores; two high-efficiency Cortex-A76 cores; and two extreme efficiency Cortex-A55 cores, the company said.
Running at higher clock speeds compared to the prior generation, Kirin 980 enables quicker app launch times, better multi-tasking and a generally smoother user experience, it added.
As graphics in mobile games have become more and more sophisticated in recent years, Huawei has integrated the Mali-G76 GPU (graphics processing unit) into the Kirin 980 to deliver improved gaming experiences.
Debuting with the Kirin 980 chip, Mali-G76 offers 46 per cent greater graphics processing power at 178 per cent improved power efficiency over the previous generation, according to Huawei.
Mali-G76 utilises AI to intelligently identify gaming workloads and adjust resource allocation for optimal gaming performance.
Kirin 980 supports common AI frameworks such as Caffee, Tensorflow and Tensorflow Lite, and provides a suite of tools that simplifies the difficulty of engineering on-device AI, allowing developers to easily tap into the leading processing power of the dual NPU.
Kirin 980 adopts a new pipeline dedicated to processing video captures, allowing the camera module to shoot videos with 33 percent shorter delay, Huawei informed.
(Gokul Bhagabati is attending the event at the invitation of Huawei Consumer Business Group. He can be contacted at gokul.b@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Marketing Basics, Markets, Sales, SMEs
New Delhi : Chinese tech conglomerate Huawei surpassed Apple to become the second largest smartphone brand worldwide in the second quarter of 2018 as South Korean giant Samsung continued to be the global leader, two reports said on Wednesday.
Samsung had 20 per cent share, followed by Huawei at 15 per cent market share and Apple with 11 per cent as global smartphone shipments declined 2 per cent to 360 million units annually in Q2, said Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Research’s “Market Monitor” service.
“Huawei had a good second quarter in 2018 as it shipped more smartphones than Apple to capture the second spot in the global smartphone rankings, after 7 years of Apple-Samsung dominance,” said Tarun Pathak, Associate Director at Counterpoint Research.
Huawei with its sub-brand, Honor, is offering a broad and refreshed portfolio at affordable prices which is driving growth in the overseas market.
“Honor, which is already strong in the e-commerce segment, is now adopting a multi-channel strategy through branded stores in the southeast Asia market. We expect store counts to increase in the future,” Pathak noted.
According to Singapore-based market research firm Canalys, Huawei shipped 54 million handsets, up 41 per cent year-on-year.
“Despite its failure to strike a US carrier partnership earlier this year, the company has turned around quickly, moving away from its drive for profitability and focusing instead on finding volume growth at the low end,” said Mo Jia, Canalys Analyst.
“Honor, which has long been a major brand in China but relatively small overseas, has taken a pivotal role in this strategy,” he added.
Samsung shipped 73 million units while Apple shipped 41 million iPhones..
“Even as Samsung smartphone shipment volumes declined globally, the brand posted a record second quarter in India, regaining its top position in Indian smartphone market,” according to Counterpoint.
Samsung will launch its Galaxy Note 9 flagship soon to counter the string of premium segment launches by its competitors and to gain some momentum before the launch of new iPhone in September.
Top 10 players now capture 79 per cent of the market, thereby leaving over 600 brands to compete for the remaining 21 per cent of the market.
“Major Chinese brands like OPPO, Vivo, Huawei are now focusing on increasing their average selling prices (ASPs) by bringing in features like artificial intelligence, bezel-less displays, dual cameras and innovative industrial designs in the affordable premium segment,” explained Counterpoint Research Analyst Shobhit Srivastava.
Xiaomi was on the fourth spot, capturing 9 per cent market share with shipments of 33 million smartphones globally.
OPPO and Vivo were the fifth and sixth largest brands during the quarter, capturing 8 per cent and 7 per cent market share, respectively.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Investing, Markets, Technology
New Delhi : Eyeing the growth-driven Cloud, Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G markets, Shenzhen-based Huawei on Friday reported net profit of 47.5 billion yuan ($7.3 billion) for 2017, an increase of 28.1 per cent year-on-year, and registered revenue of 603.6 billion yuan ($92.5 billion) — a rise of 15.7 per cent over 2016.
In 2017, Huawei’s annual investment in research and development reached 89.7 billion yuan ($13.8 billion), up 17.4 per cent compared with 2016.
The company’s total R&D spend over the past decade has exceeded 394 billion yuan ($60.4 billion).
“We’re on a new journey. Over the next 10 years, Huawei will continue to increase investment in technological innovation, investing more than $10 billion back into R&D every year,” Ken Hu, Huawei’s Rotating Chairman, said in a statement.
“We will actively pursue open collaboration, attract and cultivate top talent, and step up efforts in exploratory research. We want to better enable all industries to go digital and intelligent,” Hu added.
Focusing on helping global carriers maximise the potential of their existing network assets and seize new opportunities in video, Internet of Things (IoT) and Cloud markets, Huawei’s Carrier business group generated 297.8 billion yuan ($45.7 billion) in revenue, an increase of 2.5 per cent year-on-year.
Huawei’s enterprise business group enhanced innovations in cloud, big data, campus networks, data centres, IoT and other domains.
In 2017, the enterprise business generated 54.9 billion yuan ($8.4 billion) in revenue, an increase of 35.1 per cent compared with 2016.
Huawei set up a Cloud Business Unit in 2017, which launched 99 cloud services across 14 major categories, and over 50 solutions.
The company also unveiled the Enterprise Intelligence (EI) platform and developed over 2,000 cloud service partners.
“As we look to 2018, emerging technologies like IoT, cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and 5G will soon see large-scale application,” Hu added.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Networking, Technology
Barcelona : In a first, Huawei has unveiled a technology that uses Artificial Intelligence-enabled smartphone to drive a car that can not only identify objects on the road but take smart decisions to avoid collisions or hitting someone.
In a video released by the China-based technology giant, the driverless Porsche Panamera is controlled by Huawei’s flagship “Mate 10 Pro” smartphone that can “understand its surroundings”.
“Our smartphone is already outstanding at object recognition. We wanted to see if in a short space of time we could teach it to not only drive a car, but to use its AI capabilities to see certain objects, and be taught to avoid them,” said Andrew Garrihy, Chief Marketing Officer at Huawei Europe.
According to a report in theinquirer.net on Friday, Huawei’s ‘RoadReader’ project “pushed the boundaries of its object recognition technology and put the learning capabilities, speed and performance of its AI-powered devices to the test”.
During the test, the smartphone-driven car did not hit a real dog sitting right in the middle of the road and moved on from the side.
The camera app on the “Mate 10 Pro” can tell the difference between food, pets, landscapes and more.
Huawei will showcase its “RoadReader” project at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain on February 26-27.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Large Enterprise, Markets, Technology
By Krishna SinhaChaudhury,
New Delhi : Paying heed to the global buzz around Artificial Intelligence (AI), Chinese smartphone major Huawei has brought to India a mid-premium flagship device, Honor View 10, that includes a Neural-Network Processing Unit (NPU) tasked with handling AI functions.
Housing the latest homegrown “Kirin 970” chipset that is powered by an eight-core CPU and a new generation 12-core GPU, the device can perform AI computing tasks faster, using far less power.
At Rs 29,999, the smartphone is a successor to Honor 8 Pro and essentially competes with the likes of OnePlus 5T and Xiaomi Mi Mix 2.
The company markets it as “your first AI phone”. Does the smartphone live up to the hype? Here is what we think of it.
The phone sports a metal body with a matte finish and the review unit was Honor’s trademark navy blue colour that looked stunning.
The rear had concealed antenna bands running at the top and bottom, with a slight gleam.
Unlike other edge-to-edge display smartphones, the fingerprint sensor is placed under the screen, leaving the back of the device untouched aside from a pair of protruding camera sensors and the Honor branding.
In fact, the smartphone looks quite like the Honor 7X, albeit for a bigger frame and no fingerprint scanner at the back.
The front had thin bezels to accommodate a 5.99-inch, “Full View FHD+” display with a resolution of 1080p x 2160p. The IPS LCD display was bright and vivid and we did not have trouble in viewing text and images under direct sunlight.
However, we missed the punch that AMOLED displays offer. Users who wish to add a little “pop” to the display can switch to “Vivid” mode.
It is good to see the device run the latest Android 8.0 Oreo Operating System (OS) topped with Honor’s custom EMUI 8.0 out of the box.
The primary camera with 20MP + 16MP lenses and f/1.8 aperture uses NPU to understand and recognise subjects such as human faces, food and changes the settings accordingly to click the perfect picture in any condition.
Images shot in daylight conditions were sharp but slightly over-saturated while macro shots turned out to be impressive.
The camera is especially good at locking focus. The 13MP front shooter captured neat selfies with good colour reproduction.
We were impressed by the smooth performance of the phone, courtesy 6GB RAM and 128GB onboard storage.
Honor View 10 is powered by a 3,750mAh battery with “Super Charge” technology. We found it lasted over day with normal usage, including surfing videos on YouTube and using WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter.
What does not work?
It is disappointing to see the face unlock feature work only for showing notifications on the lock screen.
The primary shooter has a significant and uncomfortable protrusion that is a put-off. Honor has protected the lenses with metal surrounds but that also make them rough to touch.
We also found lack of extra detail in photographs taken in HDR mode.
At times, the primary camera was aggressive in dealing with low-lighting conditions and noise reduction that resulted in loss of detail.
The placement of the fingerprint sensor is rather awkward as the device has a big form factor.
Conclusion: Banking on AI capabilities, decent battery and a good camera, the View 10 is a dependable contender with some great hardware in the mid-premium flagship segment.
(Krishna SinhaChaudhury can be contacted at krishna.s@ians.in)
—IANS
