Exclusive | Not on my watch: Huawei CEO sees no future for wearable smart devices
It turns out even people at the very cutting edge of technical innovation are entitled to a “technophobe” moment.
For the boss of Huawei Technology – one of the world’s biggest makers of smart products – that moment came on Tuesday, when he declared he could not see the appeal of smartwatches in a world where smartphones seem to have it covered.
“I am always confused as to what smartwatches are for when we have smartphones,” Eric Xu Zhijun, Huawei’s rotating CEO, said during the company’s Global Analyst Summit 2017 held in Shenzhen on Tuesday.
I am always confused as to what smartwatches are for when we have smartphones
“Therefore, when the smartwatch team in Huawei presents their ideas to me with great excitement, I keep reminding them to consider whether there are tangible needs [for these products] in the market,” he said during a Q&A session with analysts and reporters from all corners of the globe.
Xu was responding to a question on whether the development of terminal products like smartwatches would squeeze its smartphone business.