“We’re doing the Nexus again this year, by the way.” This was an utterance from Charlene Munilall, General Manager for Huawei’s Business Consumer Group in South Africa. At face value, that statement seems pretty straightforward and so many news outlets picked up on it and concluded that the next Nexus phone will be from Huawei. But now on further analysis of the entire context, some are saying that we may have jumped the gun and that it was just misinterpreted.
The context of the interview was during the launch of the Huawei P9 in South Africa. She was explaining why there wasn’t an official Nexus 6P (which was of course manufactured by Huawei) in the country, which is largely because it was a “niche” product and the operators in South Africa generally don’t carry Nexus devices. So some are saying that what she was really saying is that they are planning on bringing Nexus devices to the country within the year.
But aside from that now confusing statement, there are still some persistent rumors that Huawei will produce the Nexus 2017 smartphone. It really won’t be that much of a surprise should it really happen, given that the Nexus 6P was pretty well-received. Well, except for the DAC or digital-to-audio converter, as there were complaints that the audio quality when playing from the speaker, leaves much to be desired. Huawei has been rumored to spend a bit more on improving that tech, maybe in preparation for their next Nexus device.
So just like before the interview, these are still just all rumors and speculation. And even though Munilall’s statement may be confusing, we doubt that she would let a big piece of information like that slip in a launch event that is region specific. Unless, it was really an unintentional slip of the tongue.
UPDATE: A Huawei spokesperson reached out to us to deliver this statement from the company:
“We don’t comment on future products, as a matter of policy. Huawei is committed to creating the world’s most compelling and innovative devices, offering an exceptional performance and outstanding user experience.
We are proud to have worked with Google, which is strong in innovation, on the Nexus 6P and will continue to collaborate in the future, such as our support for Daydream, the recently-announced platform for high performance mobile VR.”
VIA: XDA Developers, SlashGear
