Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co will deploy its HarmonyOS operating system on smartphones early next month in the latest move to shield its core smartphone business from US trade sanctions. It’s expected to roll out for smartphones on June 2.
The use of its own operating system will mean it will no longer be reliant on Android. US sanctions banned Google from providing technical support to new Huawei phone models and access to Google Mobile Services, the bundle of developer services upon which most Android apps are based.
It was not immediately clear if it will be launching new smartphones at the same time or if there will be updates for existing phones or how fast the rollout might occur.
The new HarmonyOS will only go some way to mitigating the impact of the 2019 sanctions that also barred Huawei from accessing critical US-origin technology, impeding its ability to design its own chips and source components from outside vendors.
