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SHANGHAI (AP) – Chinese telecoms giant Huawei said Thursday that its fledgling homegrown operating system could be available on smartphones early next year, as it pushes to build an alternative app ecosystem after the United States banned it. use Google’s Android.
HarmonyOS source code will be available starting in December for software developers creating smartphone apps, said Yu Chengdong, chief executive officer of Huawei’s consumer products division.
So far, HarmonyOS is only used with certain products, including smart TVs, in-car entertainment systems, and wearable devices, not with the company’s smartphones.
Huawei is the world’s second-largest smartphone producer after Samsung, but tech market analytics firm Canalys said Huawei overtook the South Korean company in the virus-hit second quarter.
Huawei is facing an intense campaign from the United States to isolate the company, saying it poses a threat to cybersecurity. Both Huawei and the Chinese government deny the accusation.
The United States has been pushing its allies to reject products made by Huawei, which is also the global market leader for 5G and other telecommunications network equipment.
The Trump administration has essentially shut Huawei out of the US market and introduced an ever-increasing series of measures to cut off its access to the computer chips and other technologies the company needs to survive.
Huawei’s announcement about HarmonyOS was made at an annual software developers conference that it hosts at its headquarters in the city of Shenzhen, in southern China.
The move indicates that Huawei intends to move forward with plans to create its own ecosystem, a challenge that analysts say is daunting in a world dominated by Android and Apple’s iOS.
However, Yu expressed hope that China’s huge smartphone market, the world’s largest, can remain a safe space and platform to attract global users to HarmonyOS.
“We are dedicated to introducing the work of Chinese developers to global consumers, hoping to see more TikToks in the future,” Yu said, referring to the popular Chinese-owned short-form video app that is now also on look at Trump.
Yu also said that foreign developers could continue to find a large market among Chinese users through HarmonyOS.
“We would like to be the middle bridge,” he said.
