Huawei’s Developer Conference (HDC) took place last week and there were plenty of hardware and software announcements to get excited about. 

We’ve covered those elsewhere – here we’re looking at the sessions that were potentially even more exciting – the key tech sessions from the conference centring around the HMS (Huawei Mobile Services) Ecosystem.

AppGallery is one of the top three app marketplaces globally. Huawei's priority for AppGallery is reaching the diverse needs of all these users throughout all 170 countries and regions, not just users in the UK and the US.

It has 490 million monthly active users, covering mainstream apps and services in Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa and more.

Gaming

The mobile gaming industry is booming and AppGallery is poised to take advantage of the huge growth in the sector that we’ve seen in 2020. 

Analyst Sensor Tower suggests there has been a clear increase in mobile game downloads and revenue in Q1 2020. Game downloads surged by 21% quarter-over-quarter, and 39% year-over-year to 13.4 billion. Player spending, meanwhile, also saw an increase, rising 6.6% quarter-over-quarter and 16% year-over-year to $17.5 billion. 

This year Huawei Partnered with IGG and Lilith Games to bring some globally-trending mobile games to AppGallery, including Lords Mobile, Rise of Kingdoms and AFK Arena.

Huawei also launched GameCenter earlier in 2020 providing mobile gamers with a rich experience. 

Other games that recently joined AppGallery include Langrisser Mobile, one of Japan’s legendary SRPGs, and the popular sushi master game TO-FU Oh!SUSHI.

Huawei is working with top gaming developers to help them benefit from the growing HMS Ecoystem and give users access to the latest and best games. 

Ecommerce 

Huawei says that as the growth of e-commerce in the digital space predicted to continue, more competitive technologies are required to create an engaging online space.  

According to Digital Commerce 360, global ecommerce sales through all channels were $3.53 trillion last year with online shopping account for 16.2% of the total retail sales. And with 2020’s seeing even more people shopping online, the opportunity is clear for HMS Ecosystem developers. 

Apps such as Aliexpress, Allegro, and Empik have recently been brought onto App Gallery. For brands that don’t have smartphone apps, Huawei’s Quick Apps can make sites into apps so stores can easily be smartphone compatible in under an hour.  

Huawei offers ecommerce developers numerous services for making ecommerce apps with integration alongside Huawei video, music and wallet apps, AI and AR capabilities in HMS Core developer kits.

Indeed, there are plenty of options available for developers to build in, including Ads Kit, Push and Analytics Kits for delivering targeted push campaigns, MLKit to drive Intelligent Shopping solutions and ScanKit for QRcode-based shopping coupons.

Travel 

The travel sector is growing hugely on mobile, seen by the growth in on-demand travel apps for taxis and other transportation such as escooters. 

According to analyst Strategy Analytics, transportation is globalising as operators aren’t any longer just in single countries. According to research, the market size of global online car-hailing is around $122 billion and will grow by over $200 billion by 2023. 

AppGallery is working with developers to bridge the gap between those who provide transportation and the who want to go places. Huawei’s Location kit, Nearby kit, ML kit, Scan kit, and Awareness kit means that developers can create great mobile experiences for travel apps in the HMS Ecosystem. 

Super GPS support means that it’s even easier than ever to identify roadsides, up to twice as accurate as other providers. This precise positioning means that people can more easily meet up with their driver when using taxi apps. 

Huawei adds that machine learning is also helping it provide a better translation service for transport providers meaning fewer language barriers between users and drivers. 

Fintech

In the fintech sector, users increasingly use mobile apps to manage personal finances and AppGallery boasts some big-name banking apps. Huawei is increasingly working with companies to ensure consumers have access to the relevant services in the HMS Ecosystem. The company says that app availability, disruption, and innovation are increasingly important in the fintech sector. 

Between July 2019 and April 2020, the growth rate of total onboarded apps in AppGallery was over 500 percent while the growth rate of finance apps on the grew 2,232 percent over the same period.

In July, several major banking and finance apps from Asia, Europe, the UK, and the Americas became available on AppGallery.

Huawei says it is committed to bringing all users a better choice of finance and banking apps, such as the UK's Curve, which makes managing personal finances easier by connecting existing debit and credit cards into one.

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