At the right time, supply chain personnel: DeepSeek has more customization rights for mobile phone manufacturers

Source: Visual China

Blue Whale News, February 10 (Reporter Zhai Zhichao)

On February 10, Nubia announced embedded access to DeepSeek. Prior to this, mobile phone manufacturers such as Huawei, Glory, Meizu, and OPPO had gradually completed access. For a time, DeepSeek has set off an access boom in the mobile phone field. Various manufacturers hope to use this powerful AI technology to make their mark in the fierce market competition.

Blue Whale News reporter noticed that judging from the current upgrade details released by some mobile phone manufacturers, many old models are excluded from the adaptation list and cannot enjoy the experience dividends brought by this technological advancement.

Many mobile phone manufacturers have successively connected to DeepSeek

At present, major mobile phone manufacturers have adopted different strategies and methods when accessing DeepSeek, of which direct access and embedded are the two main modes.

It is understood that Huawei, Glory, OPPO, Meizu and other mobile phone manufacturers have chosen to directly connect DeepSeek-R1 to their own mobile phones. Take HarmonyOS NEXT users as an example. After upgrading the Xiaoyi App, they can start a conversation with DeepSeek through a specific path.

Nubia took a different approach and chose to deeply embed DeepSeek into the system. It can be seen from the exposure information that Nubia’s built-in DeepSeek is located in the Nebula Smart Dialog Box interface, so users can use it without switching to a separate DeepSeek dialog interface, truly achieving a seamless connection between AI functions and the system.

Source: Nubian mobile phone

Not all mobile phone manufacturers choose to connect to DeepSeek. For example, Xiaomi mobile phones and Chuanyin mobile phones have not yet released relevant access information.

In response, Blue Whale News reporter called Chuanyin Holdings as an investor to inquire about the situation, and the other staff member said that“We still consider carefully that we have not accessed DeepSeek for the time being, and whether to access it in the future will be subject to the information we have publicly disclosed.& rdquo;

Xiaomi’s mobile customer service told Blue Whale News that

Why do many mobile phone manufacturers choose to connect to DeepSeek?

Avoiding ecological binding is one of the reasons. It is understood that Google’s AI services are often deeply bundled with Android, and using its AI solutions may make mobile phone manufacturers rely more on Google in terms of system ecology; Microsoft’s AI mainly serves its own software and cloud computing ecosystem. For mobile phone manufacturers, the degree of customization may not be enough.

In contrast, DeepSeek, as a domestically produced AI, has advantages in terms of authorization costs and data sovereignty. According to a supply chain source told Blue Whale News,“DeepSeek’s licensing costs are relatively low, which can reduce the cost of technology introduction for mobile phone manufacturers. In terms of data sovereignty, DeepSeek can better meet the needs of domestic mobile phone manufacturers for localized data storage and ensure the security and privacy of user data. During negotiations with manufacturers, DeepSeek also granted more customization rights. Mobile phone manufacturers can customize AI functions according to their own product characteristics to enhance the differentiated competitiveness of their products. rdquo;

In fact, in the highly competitive mobile phone market, an industry trend towards the popularization of end-side AI may have taken shape. Qualcomm executives said at the earnings conference that the launch of DeepSeek R1 is a turning point in the AI industry, and AI reasoning will migrate more from the cloud to the end-side (such as mobile phones and computers). This trend makes AI models need to be smaller and more efficient, and DeepSeek’s technology is adapted to Qualcomm Snapdragon chips, which can help mobile phone manufacturers implement end-side AI. rdquo;

Old models are forgotten by AI”

A Huawei Mate 30 user told Blue Whale News that now new models can experience DeepSeek with the help of Xiaoyi’s assistant, but my Mate 30 has no hope of upgrading.“ The performance of this mobile phone can still be used normally, but because it cannot adapt to the new AI, it instantly feels like it has been left behind by the times.& rdquo;

A Glory 20 Youth version mobile phone user told reporters that I have used this Glory mobile phone for more than three years and it is quite smooth to use. However, because I cannot upgrade the latest system, I have no chance to experience DeepSeek.” rdquo;

Blue Whale News reporter noticed that the current old models of some mobile phone manufacturers may not be able to adapt to DeepSeek. Take some manufacturers that have connected to DeepSeek as an example: Huawei’s native Hongmeng version of Xiaoyi App connects to DeepSeek-R1 Beta version, and users of the HarmonyOS NEXT version need to upgrade Xiaoyi App to version 11.2.10.310 and above; Users of the glory mobile system version of MagicOS 8.0 and above, upgrade the YOYO assistant to version 80.0.1.503 and above to find DeepSeek in the YOYO smartphone store and start a conversation; Meizu 21 series and Lucky 08 were the first to go online to try DeepSeek. Models other than these two models have not been mentioned yet.

In response, Blue Whale News reporter called Glory’s mobile customer service and said,“Connecting DeepSeek does require a system upgrade to MagicOS 8.0 and above. If it is an older model below this version, there is really no way.& rdquo;

In addition, Blue Whale News reporter also visited some mobile phone sales stores. A salesperson revealed that“DeepSeek needs a certain software foundation as a support to achieve good adaptation and optimization with mobile phone systems and voice assistants. However, the system version of the old model is relatively old, and the software functions are not complete enough, making it difficult to meet the adaptation requirements. rdquo;

From a technical perspective, is old hardware really unable to support basic AI services at all? The Blue Whale reporter consulted mobile phone technology experts with questions and got the answer that although the hardware performance of the old model is inferior to that of the new model, some basic AI services, such as simple speech recognition and text classification, are not completely unable to carry it. However, when running complex AI models, due to hardware performance limitations, problems such as running stuck and slow response may occur that affect the user experience. rdquo;

A mobile marketing expert shared his views with Blue Whale News. From a business perspective, some mobile phone manufacturers have adopted a relatively negative attitude towards old models in terms of system updates and AI adaptation in order to stimulate sales of new models. In fact, through reasonable system optimization and algorithm adjustment, some old models have the potential to realize basic AI functions. It is just that manufacturers lack enough motivation to deeply adapt old models due to market strategy considerations. rdquo;