Huawei Technologies Co said on Wednesday it would step up efforts to expand its presence in the commercial hardware market in its latest push to seek new growth opportunities beyond smartphones amid foreign government restrictions.

Yu Chengdong, a member of Huawei’s board of directors, said: “The company has renamed its consumer business group, which includes smartphones, PCs and other consumer-oriented businesses, into a business group. device companies, to show its determination to exploit business-oriented businesses, such as PCs used in offices, desktops and large displays for industrial customers.”

Huawei’s new group will focus on providing desktop hardware and software solutions for key industries including education, healthcare, manufacturing, transportation, finance and energy, Huawei said.

Huawei’s consumer business group contributed the most to the company’s overall revenue. But due to the US government’s strict restrictions on Huawei’s access to crucial technologies, including semiconductors, the company’s smartphone sales have plummeted.

In the fourth quarter of 2021, revenue from Huawei’s consumer business group fell nearly 50% to 243.4 billion yuan ($38 billion).

According to market research firm Counterpoint, the company’s global smartphone market share has fallen below 4% since the first quarter of 2021, from a peak of 20% in the second quarter of 2020.

In such an environment, Huawei has been working hard to find new growth engines to compensate for the decline in its smartphone business.

During an online product launch on Wednesday, Huawei unveiled its latest commercial tablets, smart wearables and displays powered by its in-house developed HarmonyOS system. Huawei also offers a customized comprehensive payment solution called Huawei Payment for government customers and small and medium enterprises.

Xiang Ligang, general manager of the Information Consumption Alliance, an industry association, said sales channels were the biggest difference between consumer-oriented and enterprise-oriented companies. The former relies on retail stores, while the latter relies on close partnerships with industrial customers.

Huawei’s advantages in product performance, quality as well as research and development can still give it an edge in business-oriented activities, Xiang said, adding that Huawei has accumulated experience in targeting industrial customers in its 5G base station business.

Huawei is also continuing its efforts to develop the OpenEuler operating system as part of its broader efforts to address the lack of local operating systems for fundamental digital technologies in China.

OpenEuler is designed for enterprise customers and can be used in devices such as servers and cloud computing. Last year, Huawei donated its Euler operating system to the OpenAtom Foundation, a major open source foundation in China, to become an open source operating system.

Jiang Dayong, director of the OpenEuler community, said the OpenEuler open source community has attracted more than 8,000 developers and 330 partners such as chipmakers, software vendors and hardware manufacturers. At present, the cumulative installed capacity of OpenEuler stands at over 1.3 million in sectors such as finance, transport and telecommunications, which means that the system is ready for faster growth. .

Jiang said he expects around 2 million new OpenEuler installs in 2022.