Huawei's home-grown mobile OS without Android support set to launch this month
Huawei Technologies will soon launch the latest iteration of its home-grown mobile operating system HarmonyOS Next, an executive reportedly said, boosting the telecommunications equipment giant's bid to take on Google's Android and Apple's iOS in the domestic market.
Huawei will officially launch HarmonyOS Next at the end of this month, Chen Xinxin, general manager of HarmonyOS industry solutions, said on Saturday at the China International Fair For Trade In Service in Beijing, according to local media reports.
HarmonyOS Next has been dubbed the "pure blood" version of Harmony, as unlike earlier versions of the operating system it will no longer support Android-based applications.
Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.
The mobile platform's latest iteration is "entirely independently developed and autonomous", Chen reportedly said on Saturday.
Huawei did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.
Huawei first launched HarmonyOS as an Android alternative in China in August 2019, three months after the US government added Huawei to a trade blacklist that barred the company from purchasing US-originated technologies without Washington's approval.
Huawei unveils its tri-fold smartphone, the Mate XT, in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, on September 10, 2024. Photo: Xinhua alt=Huawei unveils its tri-fold smartphone, the Mate XT, in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, on September 10, 2024. Photo: Xinhua>
HarmonyOS now runs on more than 900 million devices with 2.54 million developers, Chen reportedly said on Saturday. Huawei also plans to invest more than 7 billion yuan (US$987 million) to "incentivise" HarmonyOS native applications and technical services and to build out the HarmonyOS ecosystem, according to the executive.
The company first debuted HarmonyOS Next in January this year for developers. The platform, which Huawei's consumer business group chairman Richard Yu Chengdong called "China-originated, independent and controllable", will be officially launched for commercial use on Huawei's next flagship 5G smartphone series, the Mate 70, in the fourth quarter this year, Yu said in June.
More Chinese developers have got on board with HarmonyOS Next amid Huawei's push to take on iOS and Android in China. E-commerce giant JD.com, for instance, earlier this week said that its mobile application that supports the HarmonyOS Next operating system will be officially launched in September, according to an official post the company published on WeChat on Wednesday.
HarmonyOS recently unseated Apple's iOS as China's second-largest mobile operating system. The system accounted for 17 per cent of China's smartphone market in the first three months of the year, doubling its presence from the same period last year, according to a Counterpoint Research report in June.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2024. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.