SHENZHEN, China —
China’s Huawei Technologies announced the launch of its proprietary Harmony
operating system (HarmonyOS) for smartphones, as the embattled company looks to
recover from US sanctions that have hobbled its handset business.
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Huawei will start
rolling out HarmonyOS on certain models of its smartphones from Wednesday
evening, offering users the chance to switch from the current operating system
that is based on Google’s Android platform.
The use of HarmonyOS
means the company will no longer be wholly reliant on Android. US sanctions
banned Alphabet’s Google from providing technical support to new Huawei phone
models and access to Google Mobile Services, the bundle of developer services
upon which most Android apps are based.
Rather than being a
like-for-like replacement, Huawei is billing HarmonyOS as an
‘Internet-of-Things’ platform, aimed at operating on and connecting other
devices such as laptops, smartwatches, cars, and appliances.
Huawei is aiming to
have HarmonyOS rolled out on 200 million smartphones and 100 million
third-party smart devices by the year-end, said Wang Chenglu, president of
Huawei Consumer Business Group’s software department, who has led Huawei’s
efforts to develop HarmonyOS since 2016.
Wang spoke at a media
roundtable a day earlier and his comments were embargoed until Wednesday.
China’s leading
telecommunications equipment maker found itself on a US trade blacklist in May
2019 due to national security concerns. Huawei has repeatedly denied it is a
risk.
The ban put Huawei’s
handset business under immense pressure. Once the world’s biggest smartphone
maker, Huawei now is ranked sixth globally with a 4 percent market share in the
first quarter.
But Wang said the
company was looking beyond smartphones with HarmonyOS. He said the smartphone
market had plateaued and that smartphones remain the dominant device in
people’s lives largely because most developers have few other platforms to
develop for.
Instead, there was a
need for a system to bridge the gap between devices, Wang said.
“The problem with
existing operating systems is that devices can’t be connected easily,” with
users often having to download separate apps to get things to connect, Wang
said.
“But Harmony can enable
devices to be connected to form a super device. It will work as one file
system, literally one device,” Wang said.
Wang said he would
welcome other smartphone makers adopting HarmonyOS, but added that Huawei sees
big opportunities in working with makers of non-smartphone devices.
Will Wong, an analyst
at IDC, said it was not essential for
Huawei that other smartphone makers adopt
HarmonyOS.
“(But) for
Huawei to
achieve its ambition, it will be important to get other electronics brands and
even automakers onboard for the OS, and China provides a favorable market
ecosystem to achieve this,” said Wong.
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