Local tech firms go, 'Oh yes, let's have OS'
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E-mail China Daily, January 4, 2016
However, sales data suggest consumers appear to prefer Android Wear-based smartwatches to others.
More importantly, the suspension of Google services in China, and the resultant lack of access to apps that can add value to smartwatches, has resulted in Chinese technology companies lagging their international peers, in terms of developing smartwatches.
But Google is believed to be mulling a return to the Chinese mainland market in February with its Google Play and Android. Should that move pan out as expected, the contours of the smartwatch and wearables market in China could change drastically.
As if in anticipation of such an eventuality, some Chinese companies have started making moves in the wearables OS space. For instance, Mobvoi, a Chinese company founded in 2012 by ex-Googler Li Zhifei, has already rolled out its artificial intelligence technology. After receiving Series C funding in October last year, it developed Ticwear, China's first smartwatch OS, for the Moto 360 gadget.
Of course, the Big Three－Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Baidu Inc and Tencent Inc－remain active in the competition for supremacy in the Chinese technology industry.
Baidu came up with its DuWear OS in April last year, which will be made compatible with smartwatches that run on Android Wear. Alibaba Group, which entered the smartwatch market as early as 2011, has not given up on its YunOS.
"The ambition of YunOS is not only to be the third largest in terms of smartphones but become the infrastructure for the mobile Internet age. It will seek to work in the fields of connected cars, wearables and industry terminals," said Chen Shu, a Beijing-based freelance technology expert.
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