Riyadh – Mubasher: Huawei hosted its first Developer Day in Saudi Arabia during the Saudi Mobile Show, held at the Riyadh International Convention and Exhibition Center (RICEC) on 19-21 November.
During the event, the telecom giant presented the success of an ecosystem based on the core framework of Huawei Mobile Services (HMS Core and Capabilities) and Developer Services.
Huawei has increased its investment in global developers to $1 billion, through the Shining-Star program, which has been significantly upgraded and targeted at incentivizing and accelerating global developers’ innovation, according to Adam Xiao, Managing Director, Huawei Mobile Services in the Middle East and Africa.
“Huawei invests every year more than 10% of its annual revenue in [research and development] (R&D), with more than 80,000 employees working in R&D from the [188,000-employee staff] around the world. Huawei's 10-year investment in R&D is around $73 billion,” said Bill Yu, Vice President at Huawei Tech Investment Saudi Arabia.
The company, which has 6 regional centres, and 15 data centres worldwide, invested more than $15 billion in R&D during 2018, ranking 5th among global tech companies.
Huawei AppGallery celebrates achievements
Moreover, the Huawei AppGallery has reached more than 390 million global monthly active users in more than 170 countries and regions, thanks to around 570 million active Huawei mobile devices around the globe.
Since its global launch in April 2018, accumulated downloads on the AppGallery has reached 180 billion within a year.
Huawei reported that it shipped around 200 million smartphones during the first 10 months of 2019.
Collaborations with leading Saudi companies
The AppGallery has helped STC Pay, get 200,000 downloads in almost 3 months, according to Mishari Alassailan, Executive Adviser at STC Pay. Accordingly, the company will launch one exclusive voucher that will be only available for HUAWEI users in the near future, he noted.
“We are proud to be a partner with Huawei today in its strategy to support all developers and programmers in Saudi Arabia towards building a better ecosystem together,” said Abdulaziz Al-Oraij, Chairman of Programmers Association.
Meanwhile, Almosafer and Tajawal, both launched in the AppGallery since June 2019, and their yeat-to-date traffic increased by 30%, while revenues surged by 36%, according to Fahad Alobailan, Vice President of Almosafer. In addition, a new agreement will see Almosafer being preinstalled into all Huawei and Honor smartphones, Alobailan added.
Saudi Mobile Show 2019
The Saudi International Exhibition for Communications and Mobile Technology (Saudi Mobile Show) is the largest business to business (B2B) show in Kingdom for mobiles and technology.
It provides a platform to showcase, learn, and discuss the latest technologies in the field, as well as communication solutions, mobile accessories.
The three-day event saw the participation of more than 150 exhibitors and 40,000 visitors.
Furthermore, the event featured 25 workshops with international speakers and experts delivering lectures, demonstrations, and interactive discussions.
The event was held at the Riyadh International Convention & Exhibition Center (RICEC), which is owned by the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
