Huami to further push to create global healthcare ecosystem
US-listed Huami Corp is stepping up a push to build a global healthcare ecosystem by further leveraging its edge in smart wearables including smart watches and fitness trackers.
Huang Wang, chairman and CEO of Huami, said the company has inked a strategic partnership with AliveCor Inc, a US company that creates electrocardiogram recorder applications on mobile devices.
Huami has also penned a strategic memorandum with Peking University First Hospital to jointly promote heart health management programs.
The moves are part of Huami's broader mission to be a data-driven, cloud-based company offering healthcare insights.
Huang also elaborated that Huami will continue to maximize operational and strategic synergies with Xiaomi in order to achieve win-win results for both companies, while at the same time keeping Huami's own financial health at the forefront of all cooperative agreements.
He reiterated that "exclusivity" is not part of Huami's strategic cooperation agreement with Xiaomi, and that the agreement with Xiaomi states that partnership is "most preferred".
Huami has been helping Xiaomi design and manufacture wearables including fitness trackers.
Huang stated his confidence that Huami will continue to be a significant member of Xiaomi's ecosystem.
For the first nine months of 2019, Huami's total shipments of smart devices and revenue increased by over 50 percent year-over-year.
The company's persistent investment in smart watch product line diversification has achieved initial success. In the Double 11 shopping festival this year, Amazfit products ranked first in sales in the below 1,000 yuan ($142) smart watch category in the sales event period for the respective e-commerce platforms JD and Tmall.
Looking into 2020, Huang said Huami is planning for the mass production of the next-generation AI chip Huangshan-2, which has already completed the initial design phase. Huangshan-2 will be more intelligent than its predecessor and enable more healthcare service functions to further differentiate future smart watch products.