With Huawei’s access to Android being restricted due to the fall out from the US/China trade war, the company is reportedly going to deploy its own operating system on devices from October this year. Huawei has previously revealed that it has been working on its very own mobile operating system as a contingency in the event that its access to Android was ever blocked. Its HongMeng OS may be rebranded to Ark OS for markets outside China.
According to reports, Huawei will be ready to ship mobile devices powered by HongMeng from October this year. This is according to a memo from Tianfeng International analyst Guo Mingxi who predicts that Huawei will be able to roll out smartphones powered by this OS in the fall this year.
The company won’t make this switch with a flagship device first, it’s claimed, so it won’t be the flagship Mate 30 series that gets HongMeng OS. Huawei will likely release budget and mid-range devices for China first that use its own operating system before replacing Android on its flagships as well.
Another reason for a China-only launch would be that the OS may not be able to meet the requirements of the global market. It won’t be able to hold a candle to Android as far as app support and perhaps even functionality might be concerned. Huawei will scale back the launch and fine tune HongMeng OS first, build out the ecosystem before introducing its OS to the world through its more premium devices.
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