Huawei Teases 'Next Product' With Google After Nexus 6P

BARCELONA—The Nexus 6P is having a healthy effect on Huawei. The behemothic Chinese phone maker has seen some success with its Google phone in the U.Due south. That'due south made Huawei hungry to work with Google again, and more ready to tone downwardly its EMUI skin for U.Due south. and European markets.

MWC Bug Art "I think of [the Nexus 6P] equally a starting betoken. Our local team is discussing the next product with Google," said Huawei's Device VP of smartphones, Chanzhu Li. "So far it's not clear [what information technology will be], but there are a lot of potentials to explore."

The Nexus 6P, Huawei's most successful U.S. phone to date, uses a pure Google feel rather than Huawei's idiosyncratic EMUI skin. While Huawei certainly won't give upwards on EMUI, the next version of EMUI may tone downwards some of the unique design factors for the U.S. and European markets, Li said.

"So far, EMUI is favored past Asian people considering they like to play a lot with their smartphones," he said. "European and American people, they like a simpler mode to operate, and then we'll make it a balance in the new EMUI," he said.

All of this goes to say that Huawei is still trying to break into the U.Southward. smartphone market in a big way. In terms of phones, it intends to do that primarily through its Honor brand, which will have some marketing musculus behind it this year. The first U.S. Award phone, the $199 unlocked Honor 5X (pictured), was appear terminal month at CES.

"The American market place is very strategically important to us; we must be patient, just nosotros volition keep on knocking," Li said.

That isn't to say Huawei is giving up on carriers. The company is also "focusing on cooperation with the big operators," although Li couldn't hope a new P-series phone appearing on any major U.S. carrier. The Honor 5X could potentially show up on low-cost carriers, he speculated.

The new Huawei Matebook laptop may be a missed opportunity for synergy, though. While the Matebook will be targeting U.S. business concern customers, Huawei won't be selling phones in tandem with it because they have unlike sales channels, Li said. Still, though, anything that connects the Huawei brand with quality in Americans' minds, he said, will exist good.

This commodity originally appeared on PCMag.com.