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tech2 News StaffFeb 17, 2017 11:51:04 IST
Chinese smartphone maker Huawei is working on developing its own digital assistant to take on existing digital assistants in the market.
Huawei is the third-largest smartphone maker to enter the competitive space of digital voice assistants. The company will have a tough road ahead at it will compete with Apple's Siri, Google's Google Assistant and Alexa by Amazon. One thing to note is that Alexa has just started to come on to smartphones while Siri and Google Assistant are veterans in this game.
Apart from these Samsung is also working on its voice-based digital assistant Bixby that is set to enter the market with Samsung Galaxy S8 in coming weeks. Even though Huawei does not have to compete with other devices but if the company makes the digital assistant cross-platform then it will have to compete with Cortana by Microsoft, which is very capable at what it does. Cortana is still available for Android devices, but Windows 10 devices are home for Microsoft's digital assistant.
A team consisting of more than 100 engineers is working on developing the digital assistant at the company's offices in Shenzhen in China, as reported by Bloomberg. According to the report, the company is not likely to limit the digital assistant to Huawei smartphones and it is aimed at taking on Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant.
The company is not worried about any smaller players in the market right now. One interesting thing to note is that Huawei is ensuring that the assistant can communicate in Chinese languages to target the Chinese market while expanding its offence against Google and Amazon outside China.
The company has aimed for $33 billion in sales. It currently stands at number three in global smartphone shipments after Apple and Samsung. An amusing fact is that Huawei is the same company that announced that it will use Amazon Alexa on Huawei Mate 9 in the United States. This AI may take off as the company has very limited or no competition in the Chinese market. Google Assistant, the second major competitor, is blocked in China making it a perfect opportunity for the company to capitalise on this gap.
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