Chinese Smartphone Makers Team Up With Google AI To Challenge Apple, Samsung

Chinese smartphone manufacturers are joining forces with Google‘s GOOG GOOGL artificial intelligence (AI) to take on international tech behemoths such as Apple Inc. AAPL and Samsung Electronics Co. SSNLF.

What Happened: Chinese smartphone brands such as Xiaomi, Honor, and Oppo debuted their latest AI-driven smartphones at MWC 2025 in Barcelona, showcasing advanced features powered by Google's Gemini AI technology, reported the South China Morning Post on Wednesday. They promoted features like “AI erasers” for eliminating unwanted objects in photos and AI agents for tasks such as restaurant reservations.

Nicole Peng, Senior Vice President at Canalys, stated that Chinese manufacturers opted to partner with Google because of its extensive capabilities, which span across applications like YouTube, as well as hardware and infrastructure.

Peng observed that numerous Chinese vendors acknowledged the necessity for a partner to further their international objectives. This strategy mirrors Samsung’s partnership with Google, rather than striving for uniqueness. “There aren’t a lot of options at the moment,” Peng commented, naming Google as the primary beneficiary of this trend.

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Why It Matters: This move comes in the wake of Chinese smartphone maker Honor‘s announcement of a $10 billion investment over the next five years to boost its AI ambitions. Honor, a spin-off from Huawei Technologies in 2020, is deepening its partnership with Alphabet Inc.’s Google to compete with Apple and Samsung in the global smartphone market.

Besides, Honor, Oppo also announced its adoption of a secure cloud computing solution from Google to safeguard user data in its AI products. Matt Waldbusser, Google Cloud's managing director of global solutions and consumer AI, emphasized how the integration of Gemini with Chinese smartphones enabled advanced features like AI agents.

Meanwhile, Bryan Ma, the Vice President of client devices research at IDC acknowledged that the market for AI smartphones is evolving and Chinese smartphone makers are struggling to create a differentiating element for their products. He stated that the industry was eager to see whether device manufacturers would introduce more unique AI applications and expand their AI capabilities to integrate with more third-party developers this year.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.