Enterprise

What’s in store for Huawei’s future?

Expect more developments in the future

Published

July 5, 2019

Luigi Leonardo

Huawei can finally breathe some fresh air. After months of unending torment, President Trump released the company’s chains as a bargaining chip for the China-US trade war. In a surprise announcement, the American leader reversed his ban on conducting business between Huawei and local companies. Is Huawei finally in the clear? What’s next for Huawei?

Business as usual

Throughout the entire debacle, Huawei’s supporters showed a lot more anxiety than the company itself. On the surface, Huawei still carried on as normal. In fact, over the past few weeks, the company launched a series of new smartphones — as if nothing terrible was happening. For one, the Nova 5 series has already shipped out in China. Meanwhile, the Philippines will see the Y9 Prime 2019 within the coming weeks. Finally, Huawei unveiled the Mate 20 X 5G — the world’s first commercially available 5G smartphone.

If anything, Huawei has bolstered its confidence amidst the uncertainty. The company will likely continue its usual release schedule for the coming fiscal year. With that in mind, expect the Mate 30 series later this year.

Rebuilding trust

Despite their bravado, Huawei has not fostered the same confidence within its market. Consumers have already offloaded their favored devices for something less risky. Of course, Huawei’s more devout supporters have stuck with the company amid the trying times. However, a damaged reputation is damage, nonetheless.

In Singapore, Huawei is working hard to rebuild their reputation. The company is giving away milk tea for loyal customers who stayed loyal despite the brand’s difficult period. As is standard with every rebuilding company, expect more quirky marketing campaigns in the future. Besides the occasional giveaway, Huawei has resorted to more innovative tactics in the past. Given the damage sustained, we might see Huawei’s goofier side come out again soon.

Building a new phone

Amidst their confidence, Huawei also harbored frantic damage control efforts during the controversy. To combat uncertainty, the company sought more reliable alternatives for its components. These included new partnerships and in-house developments. With a more optimistic future on the horizon, Huawei won’t need as much Plan B’s anymore.

Still, Huawei won’t want its efforts wasted. The company has already worked on beefier Kirin chips and its own Ark operating system. Huawei will likely reveal these in-house products in some form. A more powerful Kirin chipset will propel Huawei up performance charts. Even without the Trump issue, Huawei has already expressed its goals to be number one. Also, an in-house Kirin chip will help position the company as a self-reliant powerhouse for smartphones.

On the other hand, the controversial Ark OS will push the company in unseen directions. How will the Chinese software impact the global marketplace? Despite Huawei’s efforts, Android still reigns supreme in the OS arena. If launched, the operating system will likely be an enforced decision for a good chunk of consumers who prefer Android. As such, will it be exclusive to China — where it might gain more favorable reception? Will Huawei just shelf it? Without much information, Huawei’s operating system is still a big unknown.

Batten down the hatches

Right now, Huawei is riding a wave of optimism. However, Trump’s words always carry a modicum of uncertainty. Is Huawei finally safe? No one knows.

Currently, the company is still bumping around in America’s rough patches. Despite Trump’s promises, American lawmakers have not relinquished Huawei yet. Outside of the commercial sphere, Huawei is still technically banned.

As such, Huawei will likely keep its allocation of resources set for in-house research and development. If anything, Trump’s latest attack on the company is a lesson learned for the Chinese company. Of course, Huawei’s upcoming announcements will populate the airwaves in their time. However, the company will keep more of its developments behind the scenes.

Ultimately, Huawei’s future is still riddled in uncertainty. If past experiences will serve their lessons, Huawei is already fighting against potential controversies in the future.

Enterprise

Sony teams up with 13 companies for sustainable global supply chain

Sustainability through introduction of renewable plastics

Published

February 9, 2026

GadgetMatch

Sony, along with several companies, have established the world’s first global supply chain for the production of renewable plastics that can be used in Sony’s high-performance audiovisual products.

The supply chain consists of 14 companies across five countries and regions. The various plastic materials manufacture through this supply are slated for use in Sony’s products that will launch worldwide.

High-performance products such as audiovisual equipment involve a wide variety of plastics. The result is a complex supply chain that makes it difficult to visualize and manage the entire flow.

Additionally, plastic components that require high performance in terms of flame resistance and optical properties cannot be fully replaced with plastics from material recycling.

To address these challenges, these 14 companies have collaborated to visualize the existing supply chain for Sony’s products:

Sony Corporation
Mitsubishi Corporation
ADEKA CORPORATION
CHIMEI Corporation
ENEOS Corporation
Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corporation
Hanwha Impact Corporation
Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd.
Mitsui Chemicals, Inc.
Neste Corporation
Qingdao Haier New Material Development Co.
Ltd., SK Geo Centric Co., Ltd.
Toray Industries, Inc.
Toray Advanced Materials Korea Inc.

Sustainability through renewable plastics

The new supply chain created will enable the production of multiple types of renewable plastics from biomass resources with a mass balance approach.

This allows Sony to proactively source raw materials for its products with quality, as well as properties equivalent to virgin fossil-based plastics.

Defining the supply chain also helps the companies track and document GHG (Greenhouse Gas) emissions data in a verifiable way.

This allows participating companies to leverage the data to advance efforts to reduce their carbon footprint going forward.

Sony’s initiative with a wide range of global partners is part of the “Creating NEW from reNEWable materials” jointly launched by the electronics giant and Mitsubishi.

It aims to achieve zero usage of virgin fossil-based plastics through the introduction of renewable plastics.

Enterprise

realme is reportedly going back to being an OPPO sub-brand

All scheduled phones will still launch on time, though.

Published

January 9, 2026

Luigi Leonardo

A popular story among Chinese smartphone brands is whenever a sub-brand spinning off into its own independent entity. A less common one is when an independent entity suddenly merges back into the main entity. And yet, that’s the story we have today. realme is reportedly going back to being a sub-brand of OPPO.

If you don’t remember realme’s time as a sub-brand, then it’s hardly your fault. It’s been a long while since realme was considered a sub-brand. In 2018, the brand spun off on its own to form one of the most popular names in the Chinese smartphone space.

Today, via Leiphone, realme will return to OPPO as a sub-brand. Current realme CEO Sky Li will still retain his responsibilities heading the brand. Plus, all products on the current release schedule will still come out as planned.

However, starting this year, realme will start reintegrating back into OPPO, particularly through the latter’s after-sales programs. OnePlus will also follow the same structure going forward.

Currently, realme has not officially announced the move. That said, we also don’t know how the brand will address the reported change. It’s possible that the shift is just internal and has no effect on how the brand faces the public. For now, only time will tell.

Enterprise

Samsung warns that tech prices might increase this year

And it’s all because of AI.

Published

January 8, 2026

Luigi Leonardo

The big story late last year was the skyrocketing prices of chips. Analysts are predicting that the demand for RAM will cause the entire industry to experience hikes this year. Some users, especially in the PC building scene, are already feeling the burn. PCs won’t be the only victims, though. Xiaomi is already expecting hikes across the board. Now, Samsung is adding its voice to the growing list of warnings about price increases.

During CES 2026, Wonjiun Lee, Samsung’s global marketing chief, confirmed that the memory shortages are, in fact, real (via Bloomberg). Moreover, the company is now evaluating whether more price hikes are needed this year for its products. Though Lee expressed regret over pushing the prices to consumers, the state of the industry might force the company’s hand.

Samsung’s opinion has a lot of weight. While other brands have also voiced out their opinions lately, Samsung itself is a producer of chips. If a chip supplier is already warning users of prices affecting them, the effect will likely cascade even more when it comes to device manufacturers.

The ongoing shortage of chips is a result of the overwhelming demand from companies looking to build and bolster AI-based servers. The business-to-business demand is notably different from how regular consumers, who will soon find it hard to buy their own devices, see it.

At the very least, Samsung has not confirmed any price increases yet. However, all eyes are on the next Galaxy Unpacked, when Samsung will launch its newest Galaxy products. Will prices increase or stay the same?