China’s Huawei will share the progress of Google’s Android operating system rival amid tensions in the US.

SHENZHEN, China: Huawei Technologies is expected to respond on Thursday to the latest salvo of US technology restrictions against it and share its progress in developing a system that is considered its best option to replace the Android mobile operating system. of Google.

Richard Yu, director of Huawei’s consumer business group, will deliver a keynote address at its annual developers conference in Dongguan, in what is expected to mark the company’s first official response to the Trump administration’s efforts to ban its access to chips.

In August, the US expanded previous restrictions aimed at preventing Huawei from sourcing semiconductors without a special license, including chips made by foreign companies that have been developed or produced with US software or technology.

Analysts said the restrictions threaten Huawei’s crown as the world’s largest smartphone maker, and that its smartphone business would disappear entirely if it were unable to acquire chipsets.

With US-China relations at their worst in decades, Washington is pressuring governments around the world to remove Huawei, arguing that it would hand over data to the Chinese government for spying. Huawei denies that it spies for China.

Huawei will also reveal its progress in the development of its proprietary Harmony operating system, which it has announced as a multi-device platform for watches, laptops and mobiles, rather than as a similar competitor to Google’s Android mobile operating system. He unveiled the system for the first time at last year’s developer conference.

“We will introduce the community to a range of new technology developments, including HMS Core 5.0 and EMUI 11, and provide opportunities to directly and openly discuss with our engineers and management of these new technologies and market opportunities,” said a Huawei spokesperson, noting that it has 1.6 million developers on board worldwide.

The addition of Huawei to the US entity list in May last year prevented Google from providing technical support for new Huawei phone models that use Android and Google Mobile Services (GMS), the package of services for developers. on which most Android apps are based.

The company is likely to focus on applying HarmonyOS on devices such as wearables and smart displays, rather than the smartphone business that is being hit hard by the US stock, said Will Wong, analyst. from the consultancy IDC.

You don’t want to present HarmonyOS as a genuine Google alternative ahead of the US elections in November, hoping that you can regain access to Google after that, he said.

A key challenge for Huawei is to demonstrate that its AppGallery and Huawei mobile services can integrate local applications from different countries and regions, said Tarun Pathak, industry analyst at Counterpoint.

“The lack of Google services seriously affects the attractiveness of these devices against competitors that run a full commercial version of Android,” he said.

(Reporting by David Kirton; Editing by Kim Coghill)