Smartphone vendors enter the IOT battlefield

Laptops, as productivity tools, will play an extremely important part in people's daily work, making such devices essential for companies' growth strategies, where they will seek to exploit the opportunities presented by various types of connected devices, Xiang said.

In addition, smartphone brands are aware of the rising demand for personal computers during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has produced a new working-from-home, or remote operations, culture, Xiang said.

Huawei Technologies Co, whose smartphone business was temporarily hampered by restrictions imposed by the United States government, is also stepping up development of its IoT business, which includes smartwatches, PCs, TVs, earbuds and other consumer electronic devices.

The company's self-developed operating system, HarmonyOS, is designed for the IoT era, and can deliver a "smooth experience "across different devices. In the middle of last month, Huawei announced that more than 100 million users had upgraded their smartphones' operating system to HarmonyOS 2.

Huawei said more than 300 partners, including home appliance maker Midea, artificial intelligence company iFlytek and cookware company Supor, have embraced HarmonyOS.

Xiang Jiangxu, vice-president and chief technology officer of Midea IoT, said earlier, "HarmonyOS will cover almost all categories of our products－some 200 varieties－within this year."

HarmonyOS will help build an efficient link between Midea's products and the smart IoT system, Xiang said, adding that more home appliances equipped with HarmonyOS will soon be available.

Huawei expects that this year more than 40 mainstream brands will become new partners of HarmonyOS.

This can help Huawei achieve its goal of 300 million devices being powered by HarmonyOS by the end of December, including more than 200 million of its own, with the remainder being third-party company equipment.

Wang Chenglu, president of the software department at Huawei's consumer business group, said the short-term market share goal for HarmonyOS' ecosystem is 16 percent.

"Sixteen percent is a threshold for an operating system's ecosystem to develop prosperously. It is a threshold that Huawei must attain," Wang said.

Fu Liang, an independent technology observer, said Huawei is taking a more fundamental step in building the software foundation for the IoT era.

The road ahead is very tough, but if Huawei can make it, this will give it a big advantage in the IoT battlefield, Fu said.