The collaboration between Ant, the fintech affiliate of South China Morning Post owner Alibaba Group Holding, and Shenzhen-based Huawei is expected to benefit consumers who use Alipay and the Chinese tech firm’s devices across different scenarios, according to a statement by Ni Xingjun, president of Alipay China business group and chairman of Ant’s technology strategy committee.
“Huawei’s digital coverage in the field of Alipay mini-programs is also conducive to improving the operating efficiency of merchants on the two ecosystems,” Ni said on Thursday.
The success of Alipay, along with Tencent Holdings-owned rival WeChat Pay, in China has made the country a global model for the shift to digital payments, as cash has all but disappeared from many shops and street stalls in recent years.
The deal with Ant represents an acceleration of “HarmonyOS’ native app development” efforts in the country, said Richard Yu Chengdong, chief executive of Huawei’s consumer business group and chairman of its Intelligent Automotive Solution business unit, in a statement on Thursday.
Huawei is expected to launch a developer preview version of HarmonyOS Next in the first quarter of 2024. HarmonyOS Next will not support Android-based apps on all Huawei devices installed with the new operating system.
Alibaba builds native app for HarmonyOS, as Huawei cuts Android ties
Alibaba builds native app for HarmonyOS, as Huawei cuts Android ties
More than 700 million devices currently run on HarmonyOS, with more than 2.2 million third-party developers creating apps for the platform, according to Huawei’s Yu at the company’s annual developer conference in August.