China’s Huawei Technologies is signaling its intention to compete throughout the wireless ecosystem. Already the number two global provider of wireless infrastructure (behind Ericsson) and an up-and-comer in the handset market, Huawei is now expanding its chip business to include mobile processors. “In the future, whether it be mobile broadband devices, tablets, or smartphones, Huawei will be able to provide its own core chip solution,” Huawei executive vice president Eric Xu told analysts this week.
Huawei’s quad-core processors power its Ascend D smartphone, introduced earlier this year. Huawei calls it “the world’s fastest smartphone” and touts the chipset’s ability to conserve battery life by reducing power consumption when the user is not playing games or watching video. The processor runs at either 1.5GHz or 1.2GHz.
Asked how Huawei intended to make money in the hyper-competitive smartphone market, Yu replied that Huawei may not be able to do that now, but said that Huawei will make money from its chip business. While Huawei is a new entrant to the mobile processor space, the company’s HiSilicon Technologies has designed wireless baseband processors for some time. The combination of a baseband solution and a processor could eventually position Huawei as a supplier of integrated solutions to other handset makers.
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