BARCELONA—The Nexus 6P is having a healthy effect on Huawei. The giant Chinese phone maker has seen some success with its Google phone in the U.S. That's made Huawei hungry to work with Google again, and more ready to tone down its EMUI skin for U.S. and European markets.
"I think of [the Nexus 6P] as a starting point. Our local team is discussing the next product with Google," said Huawei's Device VP of smartphones, Chanzhu Li. "So far it's not clear [what it will be], but there are a lot of potentials to explore."
The Nexus 6P, Huawei's most successful U.S. phone to date, uses a pure Google experience rather than Huawei's idiosyncratic EMUI skin. While Huawei certainly won't give up on EMUI, the next version of EMUI may tone down some of the unique design factors for the U.S. and European markets, Li said.
"So far, EMUI is favored by Asian people because they like to play a lot with their smartphones," he said. "European and American people, they like a simpler way to operate, so we'll make it a balance in the new EMUI," he said.
All of this goes to say that Huawei is still trying to break into the U.S. smartphone market in a big way. In terms of phones, it intends to do that primarily through its Honor brand, which will have some marketing muscle behind it this year. The first U.S. Honor phone, the $199 unlocked Honor 5X (pictured), was announced last month at CES.
"The American market is very strategically important to us; we must be patient, but we will keep on knocking," Li said.
That isn't to say Huawei is giving up on carriers. The company is also "focusing on cooperation with the big operators," although Li couldn't promise a new P-series phone appearing on any major U.S. carrier. The Honor 5X could potentially show up on low-cost carriers, he speculated.
The new Huawei Matebook laptop may be a missed opportunity for synergy, though. While the Matebook will be targeting U.S. business customers, Huawei won't be selling phones in tandem with it because they have different sales channels, Li said. Still, though, anything that connects the Huawei brand with quality in Americans' minds, he said, will be good.
This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.