14 DAY TRIAL // Back in May 2019, the United States officially banned Huawei, blocking the company from working with American companies and using their products.
These included Android, the Google mobile operating system that Huawei installed on its mobile devices sold everywhere across the world.
And with the U.S. not willing to raise the sanctions, Huawei had no other option than to simply begin investing in its very own Android alternative.
Called HarmonyOS, this operating system has been in the works for a while, and now Huawei’s Richard Yu claims it’s ready to be installed on mobile devices. The first Huawei smartphones running HarmonyOS would launch in early 2021, as the Chinese tech giant has already prepared the necessary app portfolio to also survive without Google services.
Huawei’s app store already has thousands of apps, which basically means that users shouldn’t feel such a big difference if the Google Play Store doesn’t come pre-loaded.
The United States ban
Yu, however, admitted that Huawei’s partnership with Google is still active, so the first smartphones launching with HarmonyOS still have to wait a few more months.
In the meantime, international markets become even more difficult for Huawei, as the company struggles to deal with the sanctions announced by the United States.
For example, Huawei is also exploring a partnership with MediaTek, as TSMC would no longer be allowed to build processors for the Chinese firm due to the same sanctions.
At this point, Huawei is still relying a lot on China, and the recovery that the country has recorded after the lockdown was over allowed the company to benefit from a substantial increase in phone sales. However, analysts believe that Huawei is still struggling in international markets, and once the global health issue comes to an end, companies like Samsung and Apple are likely to gain a substantial lead over the Chinese firm.