Huawei to launch music streaming and cloud storage apps in South Africa
Huawei will launch its mobile cloud services in South Africa.
Speaking at the company’s Consumer Business Group briefing in Johannesburg, Huawei vice president of consumer cloud service Su Jie said they will launch consumer-facing cloud services locally.
Huawei has established regional centres in Germany, Singapore, and China to support its mobile cloud services across 200 countries.
By providing mobile cloud services in South Africa, Huawei plans to improve its service offering and deliver an integrated product to consumers consisting of chipset, cloud, and hardware-powered features.
Mobile apps
Jie said that Huawei would initially roll out support for six cloud-based mobile apps in South Africa and would continue to expand this offering.
The company’s cloud-based apps have seen great success globally, with its HiCloud storage service ranked as one of the top three in the world and its mobile payment app generating $631 million in revenue last year, he said.
The implementation of Huawei’s mobile cloud services in South Africa will support the following applications:
- App Gallery – This app grants access to Huawei’s app store, which will focus on curated and localised applications with stringent security checks.
- Theme Store – Huawei’s Theme Store app allows users to customise their smartphones with international and localised themes.
- HiCloud – Using HiCloud, Huawei smartphone users will be able to backup and restore a variety of data.
- Screen Magazine – Screen Magazine is an advertising platform which Huawei said is unintrusive and does not hinder the experience of consumers.
- Mobile Payment – The Mobile Payment app has proven popular as a cashless payment alternative in China, and the company plans to allow consumers to spend money from their phone in South Africa.
- Huawei Music – Huawei’s music streaming app will initially feature 80% local South African music, and will expand to support a large amount of international music.
Localisation
Huawei said it is in partnership discussions with local companies to improve the localisation of the content available on its cloud platform.
“We want to localise Huawei’s mobile cloud services as much as possible and offer services that plug seamlessly into the everyday lives of consumers,” said Jie.
“One of our key objectives is to create an open ecosystem for local developers and give them an opportunity to contribute to our services.”
Cloud services in South Africa will be provided by the company’s Singapore data centre and will support all existing Huawei devices.
Jie told MyBroadband that if the adoption of mobile cloud services in South Africa grows quickly, however, the company will consider implementing a data hub in the country to service local demand.
“Mobile cloud services are becoming an increasingly important part of the mobile experience,” said Jie.
Huawei’s mobile cloud services will roll out to the rest of sub-Saharan Africa following their local launch.
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