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BEIJING — Chinese smartphone companies are rolling out artificial intelligence features for local users, adding pressure on Apple.
The U.S.-based iPhone company is expected to launch Apple Intelligence on eligible devices next week — but only to users not in mainland China or the European Union. Apple fell out of the top five smartphone players in China earlier this year, according to research firm Canalys.
Competitors have increasingly focused on integrating AI with alternative operating systems.
Telecommunications giant Huawei on Tuesday launched an upgrade to its HarmonyOS system that eliminated reliance on the Google-created Android operating system.
The new HarmonyOS uses in-house AI to allow users to translate text, take notes and edit photos, according to the company. U.S. sanctions cut Huawei off from Google, prompting the Chinese company to launch its own operating system, HarmonyOS, in 2019. The newly released OS is reportedly a fully self-developed system and is not based on Android open source software.
Honor, a spinoff from Huawei that focuses on higher-end devices, revealed Wednesday the latest version of its Android-based Magic operating system would focus on AI as an assistant.
A company demo showed how even with a vague voice command — such as “I’m tired, order something” — the phone was able to automatically order coffee without requiring the user to touch the device. It used AI to mimic actions on a touchscreen. Human intervention was only needed to complete the payment.
The AI assistant could also identify documents and send them to contacts, or make calls via social media app WeChat, all without requiring the user to touch the phone.
For devices in China, Honor works with Baidu and other Chinese companies for some AI functions, while developing others on its own. Honor works with Google for devices sold overseas.
The new AI features are slated for release on Honor’s forthcoming Magic 7 smartphone, due for launch on Oct. 30. Honor plans to roll out AI capabilities to all its devices by the first few months of next year.
The Magic 7 will use Qualcomm‘s newly announced Snapdragon Elite 8 chip for phones. Honor on Monday had teased its new AI features at the chipmaker’s annual event.
Chinese home appliance and smartphone company Xiaomi will also launch a new phone this month that uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Elite 8 chip. Xiaomi has been less vocal about its AI features for smartphones.
The AI features have climbed to a new level, Toby Zhu, senior analyst, Canalys, said in a phone interview Wednesday after Honor’s event. He said the new features have greater potential to convince consumers to switch to another device.
“Apple faces challenges in China but from our data it won’t face a significant decline,” he said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC.
Apple’s falling China sales
Honor, Xiaomi and Huawei have all launched foldables, a category Apple has yet to enter.
About 17% of Apple’s revenue came from Greater China in the quarter ended June 29. That’s down from 19% in the year-ago period. Apple is scheduled to release quarterly results on Oct. 31 local time.
Apple CEO Tim Cook met with China’s Minister of Industry and Information Technology Jin Zhuanglong on Wednesday to discuss data security and cloud services, according to the ministry. Apple did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.
Since launching on Sept. 20, Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro Max has dropped slightly in value on second-hand shopping platform Xianyu. The device was selling between 8,000 Chinese yuan ($1,122) and 10,000 yuan Wednesday, compared with 10,500 yuan to 16,300 yuan last month.
Huawei had launched its trifold Mate XT on the same day. As of Wednesday, second-hand prices for the device had dropped to the mid-20,000 yuan range, nearly half the price it was selling for on Sept. 20.
— CNBC’s Dylan Butts and Sonia Heng contributed to this report.