Chinese telecom giant Huawei unveiled its own operating system on Friday, as it faces the threat of losing access to Google’s Android platform, amid escalating U.S.-China trade tensions.
The highly anticipated operating system is considered crucial for the tech titan’s survival as it confronts a looming White House ban on U.S. companies selling technology products to Huawei, which could remove its access to Android.
Richard Yu, the head of Huawei’s consumer business, revealed HarmonyOS — HongMeng in Chinese — at a press conference in Dongguan. He said the first version would launch later this year in its smart screen products, before expanding across a range of smart devices, including wearable technology, over the next three years. “If you’re asking when will we apply this to the smartphone, we can do it at any time,” he said.
“If we cannot use it (Android) in the future, we can immediately switch to the HarmonyOS.” But Mr. Yu said Huawei had no plan to “launch a smartphone with HarmonyOS” while noting that “our backup plan is always ready”.
Mr. Yu said HarmonyOS was “future oriented” and designed to be “more smooth and secure”, which he said was “completely different” from Android and iOS.
