Huawei Technologies Co (華為) will from next year strip its smartphones and tablets of Google’s open-source Android and move devices to homegrown software, broadcasting its ambitions to pivot away from US technology.
The company’s new flagship phone, the Mate 70, will debut HarmonyOS Next, the iteration of its operating system that does away with remnants of Android in favor of entirely indigenous tech. Announced at a live-streamed event yesterday, the new devices fuel Huawei’s campaign to reclaim China’s premium tier from Apple Inc and build an ecosystem without the involvement of major US tech providers.
Available on Wednesday next week, the Mate 70 and its Pro variants are the followup to Huawei’s most significant device in years, the Mate 60.
Photo: Adek Berry, AFP
Last year’s edition, powered by a made-in-China processor, brought Huawei back into the smartphone industry limelight and signaled its ability to work around US trade curbs designed to cut it off from the most advanced chipmaking.
HarmonyOS Next will still need another two to three months to improve the user experience, but the plan is to henceforth use it on upcoming gadgets, said Richard Yu (余承東), chairman of Huawei’s consumer business group.
The Mate 70 series will offer 40 percent better performance than its predecessor, in part because of HarmonyOS Next, Yu said, falling short of disclosing details of the processors that power the phones.
Shenzhen-based Huawei is expected to use its latest in-house Kirin chip for the new product line, though its performance increase may be less significant than Qualcomm Inc and MediaTek Inc’s (聯發科) top-end offerings, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Charles Shum (沈明) and Sean Chen.
“That suggests the new Huawei phone may struggle to capture the attention of non-Huawei Android users,” they wrote.
Despite Washington’s blacklisting and technical challenges, Huawei managed to grow sales over the past seven quarters, with the help of an expanding smartphone business. Its shipments recorded four consecutive quarters of at least double-digit growth in China as of September, according to research firm International Data Corp.
Huawei yesterday also unveiled a number of other products including a new tablet and a gold-plated smartwatch. Earlier in the fall, the company introduced the world’s first trifold phone, also powered by chips that were designed in-house.
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