Less than 24 hours ago, Google announced to sever its ties with Huawei and ban the Chinese company from using its services in the future. Interestingly, it seems Huawei as already been working on its own mobile OS for some time now.
According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the Chinese tech-giant has been developing its own mobile OS since 2012. Furthermore, Huawei’s CEO, Richard Yu back in March said that the company has developed its own Operating System in case of any unforeseeable circumstances. It seems that Huawei correctly foresaw the future as the recent ban by Google might force the company to launch its own OS or look for alternatives as soon as possible.
South China Morning Post further said that Huawei has already installed their OS on their smartphone and have been using it for some time. In any case, this will be an uphill of a task for the Chinese company as the currently two Operating Systems, iOS, and Android already dominate the market and constitute of 99.9% of all smartphones. This recent development will surely cripple and potentially destroy Huawei’s smartphone business outside of China.
Last year, ZTE was banned in a similar manner and currently faces a seven-year US ban for selling equipment to Iran. Back in 2018, Huawei’s owner Zhao Ming was asked the potential introduction of a Huawei OS in the market, following the ZTE ban.
“There is no doubt that Huawei is capable of doing it, but for now I don’t think it is necessary since we work very closely with Google and will continue to use its Android system,” Zhao said
It should be mentioned that companies other than Huawei had also tried to streamline their mobile OS. In the recent past, we find examples of several companies such as Microsoft with its Windows Mobile OS, and Samsung Electronics with its Tizen system. Then there was Nokia’s Symbian platform which was considered to be the pioneer of the age of smartphones.
For now, things seem bad for Huawei since this ban potentially means the end of Huawei smartphones outside of the USA. All that’s left to see is how will China respond to this. Whether they will impose harsh taxes on Apple which will subsequently increase iPhone prices, only time will tell.
