Huawei wants to take homegrown HarmonyOS phone platform worldwide
- Reference: 1713814212
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/04/22/huawei_harmonyos_expansion/
- Source link:
The Chinese tech megacorp released its [1]own phone platform in 2019 , the same year that [2]US sanctions blocked Huawei from having further access to [3]Google's Android software to power its devices.
More recently, the company saw its Mate 60 Pro smartphone become the top selling device in China's huge consumer market, displacing rivals such as Apple's iPhone. It also has a newer device, the [4]Pura 70 , that could [5]pose a bigger threat to Apple sales in the country.
[6]
Now Huawei has set its sights on international expansion and intends to spend 2024 building up the native HarmonyOS app ecosystem, including bringing the most popular smartphone apps to its platform.
[7]
[8]
"We will work hard to build up the HarmonyOS app ecosystem in the China market first, then, from country to country, we will start gradually pushing it out to other parts of the world," Huawei's rotating chairman Erik Xu told attendees at its 21st [9]Analyst Summit in Shenzhen last week.
Part of this process will involve porting apps to HarmonyOS and encouraging other app developers to code for the platform.
[10]
"In the China market, Huawei smartphone users spend 99 percent of their time on about 5,000 apps. So we decided to spend 2024 porting these apps over to HarmonyOS first in our drive to truly unify the OS and the app ecosystem. We are also encouraging other apps to be ported over to HarmonyOS," Xu said.
According to Huawei's rotating chairman, more than 4,000 of those apps are already in the process of being transferred, and the company is "communicating with developers" on the 1,000 or so apps that remain.
"This is a massive undertaking, but we have broad support in the industry and from many app developers," he claimed.
[11]
"Once we have these first 5,000 Android apps – and thousands of other apps – up and running on HarmonyOS, we will have a real HarmonyOS: a third mobile operating system for the world," Xu said. That number could reach up to 1 million apps in the future, he claimed.
According to [12]Counterpoint Research , HarmonyOS has seen high growth thanks to the introduction of 5G smartphones powered by it, such as the Mate 60 Pro. The platform accounted for 4 percent of global market share in the fourth quarter of 2023, and exceeded 16 percent market share in China, which Counterpoint said makes this the third largest mobile operating system by handset sales, behind Android and iOS.
[13]Huawei's latest flagship smartphone contains no world-shaking silicon surprises
[14]Intel fuels Huawei's AI PC ambitions with Meteor Lake CPUs in MateBook X Pro
[15]Huawei prepares to split from Android on consumer devices with HarmonyOS Next
[16]Huawei bets its 2024 on datacenter infrastructure
Whether there will be much of a market for HarmonyOS devices outside of China is open to debate: repeated sanctions and negative publicity from the US and governments in Europe has left the brand with a hill to climb in both the world of business and consumer land.
In related news, at the weekend US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo chose to downplay Huawei's achievements in delivering 5G smartphone products such as the Mate 60 Pro in spite of US sanctions against the company. The device is powered by a 7nm Arm processor developed in-house by Huawei and manufactured by Chinese chipmaker SMIC.
Speaking on the CBS network's 60 Minutes program, Raimondo dismissed Huawei's claims of a technology breakthrough and said the gap in capabilities between it and US companies showed that the White House's export controls on China were working.
This may have something to do with launch of the Mate 60 Pro coinciding with Raimondo's visit to China last year, which led to her being [17]mocked on social media . ®
"It's years behind what we have in the United States," [18]Raimondo said in the interview at the weekend. "We have the most sophisticated semiconductors in the world. China doesn't. We've out-innovated China."
How long the US can continue to stay ahead of China when Beijing is pumping funds into the country's semiconductor industries also remains to be seen. Earlier this month, reports indicated that Huawei is set to [19]develop its own chipmaking equipment following restrictions on the sale of advanced lithography kit to China from the likes of ASML. ®
Get our [20]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2019/08/09/huawei_harmonyos/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2019/10/21/huawei_admits_us_sanctions_are_hurting/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2019/05/20/google_pulls_play_and_other_services_from_huawei/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/19/huawei_pura_70_soc_advances/
[5] https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3259655/huaweis-new-pura-70-series-smartphone-poses-threat-iphone-sales-china-say-analysts
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Zibd@pBnd8LzynzZ6dL0mAAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zibd@pBnd8LzynzZ6dL0mAAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Zibd@pBnd8LzynzZ6dL0mAAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.huawei.com/en/events/has
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zibd@pBnd8LzynzZ6dL0mAAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Zibd@pBnd8LzynzZ6dL0mAAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.counterpointresearch.com/insights/global-smartphone-os-market-share/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/19/huawei_pura_70_soc_advances/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/11/intel_huawei_meteor_lake/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/huawei_harmony_os_next/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/02/huawei_chair_2024_letter/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/06/gina_raimondo_huawei_ambassador/
[18] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/commerce-secretary-gina-raimondo-on-us-microchip-production-blocking-of-sales-to-china-russia-60-minutes-transcript/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/11/huawei_developing_chipmaking_equipment/
[20] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: I'd try it
It's (extensively modified) forked Linux/Android, at least on Phones (it uses LiteOS for smaller things) - China doesn't build anything from scratch, it's always 'borrowed'.
The UI, which is probably what you'd actually care about, is quite similar to Android, though clunkier since it started as trying to clone early iOS using Android (all the apps on the home screen, no folders, etc.). It can do widgets and folders and cards now, but you can tell they're more interested in adding more features than actually fixing the UI. You can do Android apps through a compat layer, though you're supposed to go through the Huawei AppGallery to get 'native' HarmonyOS apps, and of course the native apps have access to all the other things Huawei's added to stock Android.
For sure try it out, but I don't think you'll be blown away. There's no major move away from Android or iOS here and I wouldn't say it's better than either. But not horribly worse, totally usable!
Difficult but not impossible
I'm using EMUI/Android, Android, iOS and HarmonyOS at the moment in Europe.
For HarmonyOS to take root here Huawei needs bring more ecosystem devices over and showcase them. Especially things like its door locks, family storage solutions and TVs. And get HarmonyOS on its partnered cars over here too. And have NearLink glue the wireless part together.
Away from pure HarmonyOS phones, it needs to really beef up HMS cloud options for GMS and iOS based phones.
Although no one wants to admit it, MagicOS seems to be HarmonyOS in sheep's clothing so there is definitely a wedge there as Honor phones also run GMS (at least at the moment).
It's very doable but will require commitment and lots of marketing and that should start with branding and starting to call out the accusations and ask for proof.
"expand its native HarmonyOS smartphone platform worldwide"
No problem.
Huawei just needs to demonstrate that its OS isn't phoning everything to Beijing.
How I would like to be able to say : "like Android". Unfortunately, Android is already as bad as Beijing, so, again, why not ?
It's not like we are living in a civilization that respects our individual privacy. So, one more, one less . . .
SEA, LatAm, ME, and Africa
Are prime locations to expand HarmonyOS' footprint...
The App ecosystem in those regions (specially the local Apps like banking, delivery and Rideshare, just to name a few) is made of small local companies, not large global Juggernoughts beholden to the USoA and/or Europe. Also, being smaller, those local devs will be more willing to port in exchange for incentives (be it direct payment, marketing considerations or other somesuch). For the Meta's and Microsoft's of this world, thoce incentives are less valuable than bellybutton lint.
Knowing their MO (full disclosure, I was on Huawei's payroll for a year between 2007 and 2008, on the Telco side*), they will probably go that route, starting in the Middle East and LatAm (different cultures in each country, but a unifying language, like in their homemarket of china). Then they'll move to SE Asia (bigger population, more income), finally africa.
Of course, if there is a Fluke in a specific country (think a country which theorethically would rather be spied on by china rather than being spyed on by the 5 eyes, and whose leadership is myffed at the USoA because of "reasons") they will pounce on that gladly.
JM2¢ YMMV
* Only once in the late ''00s did a telco switch phoned home to china. It was on a global telco operating in my country (and many others, I said global). Huawei was dragged through the coals, said it was a mistake, no new incidents were recorded (from then until today, my country is small, we telco guys know each other), either in that country or in any of the other countries were said telco operated, so yes, probably a mistake of some sort, most likely a misconfigured remote management interface (the ones used for managed services).
Anon for evident reasons.
I'd try it
Why not ? Can't be any worse than Android or iOS ...