Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. plans to incorporate its homegrown Harmony operating system (OS) into 200 million products including phones and televisions over the next year, as the tech giant seeks to combat U.S. restrictions on its ability to purchase components and software.
At the company’s annual developer conference in the southern Chinese city of Dongguan on Thursday, Richard Yu, head of Huawei’s consumer business group, announced the launch of Harmony OS 2.0, which will power Huawei’s new smartphones starting next year according to Chinese news media Caixin Global.
On May 16, 2019, the US government placed Huawei on its Entity List. U.S government action prohibits all US companies, including Google, from collaborating with Huawei.
This means that Google is prohibited from working with Huawei on new device models or providing Google’s apps including Gmail, Maps, YouTube, the Play Store and others for preload or download on these devices.
However, US law currently allows Google to only work with Huawei on device models available to the public on or before May 16, 2019.
Huawei first unveiled Harmony OS in August 2019 as an alternative to Google’s Android OS, three months after it was placed on the U.S. “entity list.”
Google’s Android accounted for 85.4% of smartphones shipped last year, according to research company IDC, and Apple’s iOS the remaining 14.6%.
The original version of Harmony OS which was unveiled a year ago, was pitched for use in smartwatches, TVs and other smart home gadgets.
But the company now intends to release a fresh version – Harmony OS 2.0 – that can be tested on handsets from December, ahead of a formal launch in October 2021.
Huawei will also release EMUI 11 – a version of its mobile phone user interface based on Android 11.
Some of its smartphone models will be offered with Harmony OS after October, although it will continue to offer EMUI as an alternative.
Written by;
Ifunanya Ikueze
