According to Nikkei, Huawei Technologies has opened a health and fitness research center in its hometown of Guangdong to test and improve wearables, an increasingly important business for a company that used to be a Chinese manufacturer. leading smartphone manufacturer in the world.
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Inside Huawei’s new $31 million health lab recently opened in Dongguan, China |
The 200 million yuan (about $31.4 million) Songshan Lake Health Lab in Dongguan city is Huawei’s third facility, after two others in Shenzhen and Xi’an, that was first opened to foreign media last week, after starting operations in October 2021.
The move marks Huawei’s efforts to develop smartwatches and other wearables as an alternative source of income for smartphones, a market where China’s top telecommunications equipment maker. was lost under pressure from US administration sanctions, for allegedly having ties to the Chinese military.
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The Songshan Lake Health Lab campus is 4,680 square meters in size, and includes a 400-meter indoor track, swimming pool, basketball court, rock climbing wall and a “highland” experimental area where conditions in the fields can be simulated. different heights. Employees wear smart watches when exercising to track data. This data will then be used to improve Huawei’s smart devices and develop new products.
According to Huawei, the lab can collect more than 80 types of data including heart rate, calories burned and oxygen levels from more than 100 different types of exercise. “We want to work with various external partners to create new products and services,” said Jiang Ting, Vice President of Huawei’s Wearables and Healthcare Business.
Huawei says the company is the top seller of wearables in China, with a total of more than 80 million units shipped worldwide. Huawei led the world in smartphone shipments for the first time in the second quarter of 2020. But sales of this key product have plummeted since last fall, when the US government restricted Huawei’s access to the cutting-edge chips needed for smartphones.
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