Huawei’s new made-in-China software takes on Apple and Android
With its latest operating system, it is cutting ties with Western tech
When huawei, the Chinese tech giant, releases its latest smartphone this month, techies
across the world will strip it down to figure out how it works. The semiconductors powering
the Mate 70, as the device is called, will reveal how much progress China has made in
building its own chips and breaking its reliance on foreign technology. But the software in
the phone may prove more important than the hardware. Huawei is expected to install
Harmonyos next, its new home-made operating system, on the devices. This would be
China’s first clean break with the Western-backed systems on which it and the rest of the
world rely.
China’s government wants the country to become technologically self-sufficient in
everything from fertiliser and passenger jets to chips and payments networks. It views
Western chokeholds on critical technologies as national-security risks which could prove
especially dangerous to China in a conflict. Huawei’s contribution to China’s pursuit of self-
sufficiency has lately focused on advanced semiconductors. But the country is still
overwhelmingly reliant on American mobile operating systems. Android, owned by Google,
and ios, Apple’s system, power about 98% of smartphones globally, including almost all of
those in China.
Huawei’s new system will add a third contender. It was launched last month, and is available
only for testing, but is expected to become more widespread with the Mate 70’s release. The
current, widely used version of Huawei’s system still relies on free code from Android and
software from Linux, a global open-source project. The new version is expected to throw out
those foreign elements and replace them with all-native components. Apps developed for
Android, which function on the current version, will not work on the new one. Chinese
media have, somewhat disturbingly, described Harmonyos next as a “pure-blood” system.
Huawei began developing its Harmony operating system in 2012 for internet-of-things
devices, such as smart tvs and speakers, rather than for phones. But American sanctions on
the company in 2019 cut off its access to Google Mobile Services, including its app store,
along with the powerful semiconductors needed to make phones with fifth-generation (5g)
wireless connectivity.
This torpedoed the popularity of Huawei’s smartphones outside China, and kicked off an
effort by the business to shift its smartphones over to its own operating system and
indigenise the manufacturing of semiconductors. In August last year Huawei surprised tech
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analysts when it released the Mate 60, a smartphone containing advanced seven-nanometre
chips manufactured domestically, allowing it to re-enter the market for 5g phones. The Mate
70, provided it runs on Huawei’s new operating system, will mark another milestone in the
company’s efforts to reduce its reliance on Western companies.
Building an operating system is no mean feat. The main challenge is attracting enough
external developers to design applications that run on it. That requires convincing them that
the system will be successful and that developing an app for it will be worth their time.
Many have tried and failed to make new systems work over the years; app developers
generally stick with the incumbents.
This suggests that Huawei is taking a gamble by severing ties with Android. By August last
year, when the Mate 60 was released, developers had created fewer than 100 apps
specifically for its operating system. The popularity of the device, and the company’s
subsequent 5g phones, have helped convince many developers to start making new apps for
Huawei’s phones, with more than 15,000 native apps and services created since the Mate 60
was released. Tests of Harmonyos next have added to the excitement.
Nonetheless, shifting its devices to the new system risks hurting Huawei’s smartphone sales.
Android offers users several million apps; if Chinese people cannot find their favourite ones,
they may opt for another phone. Chinese journalists who have tested some of Harmony’s
native apps have complained that they lack important functions. Users that tested Huawei’s
new operating system in mid-October were able to send messages and make video calls on
WeChat, one of China’s most-popular super-apps, but not to send money to friends, share
their location or watch short videos.
Huawei may be hoping that it can build further momentum for its operating system by
persuading other Chinese smartphone-makers to adopt it. It has created OpenHarmony, a
rival to Android’s open-source offerings that allows companies to design their own versions
of its system. Convincing them to do that will not be easy. Rival Chinese smartphone-makers
such as Xiaomi, Vivo and Oppo compete fiercely with Huawei, and some are developing
operating systems of their own using Android code. It is possible, though, that the Chinese
government will eventually order Huawei’s rivals to switch from Android to Harmony,
reckon analysts at Jefferies, an investment bank.
Huawei’s ambitions for Harmony go beyond smartphones. The system will soon replace
Microsoft Windows on its laptops. It can be used across all the company’s devices, of which
there are more than 1bn, including the cars it helps design. That should ease the
government’s fears about China’s reliance on foreign technology—and cause Western tech
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giants to sit up
