Huawei Technologies is expected to reply to the latest salvo of US tech constraints against it and share its progress on creating a system that is regarded as its very best bet to replace Google’s Android mobile OS.
Richard Yu, the mind of Huawei’s customer business team, will deliver a keynote address in its annual developers conference in Dongguan, in what is expected to mark the organisation’s first official reaction to the Trump administrations efforts to bar its access to chips.
In August that the US enlarged earlier constraints aimed at preventing Huawei from obtaining semiconductors with no special license – including processors made by foreign companies which have been developed or produced using US software or tech.
Critics said that the constraints threaten Huawei’s crown as the world’s largest smartphone maker, which its smartphone business could disappear entirely if it couldn’t source chipsets.
With US-China relations at their worst in years, Washington is pushing authorities around to world to squeeze Huawei, arguing it would hand over information to the Chinese government for spying.
Huawei will also show its progress in developing its proprietary Harmony operating platform, which it has charged as an multi-device platform across watches, laptops and mobile phones, as opposed to as a like-for-like challenger into Google’s Android mobile operating platform. It unveiled the platform for the very first time at last year’s developers conference.
“We will introduce the community to a range of new technology developments, including HMS Core 5.0 and EMUI 11, and provide opportunities to discuss directly and openly with our engineers and management these new technologies and market opportunities,” a Huawei spokesman said, noting it has 1.6 million developers onboard across the world.
Huawei’s addition to the US ‘banned list’ in May last year barred Google from providing technical support for new Huawei phone models using Android, and from Google Mobile Services (GMS), the bundle of developer services upon which many Android apps are based.
The company is very likely to concentrate on HarmonyOS’s application in devices like wearables and smartscreens, instead of in the smartphone company that is being heavily influenced by the US action, stated Will Wong, an analyst with leading tech consultancy IDC.
It won’t wish to introduce HarmonyOS as a real Google alternative before the US election in November, in the expectation that it may regain access to Google after that, he explained.
A key challenge for Huawei would be to show that its proprietary AppGallery and Huawei Mobile Services can incorporate local programs from various countries and regions, said Tarun Pathak, an industry analyst with Counterpoint.
“The lack of Google services seriously impacts these devices’ appeal against competitors conducting a full commercial version of Android,” he explained.
The team at Platform Executive hope you have enjoyed the ‘[post_title]’ article. Initial reporting via our official content partners at Thomson Reuters. Reporting by David Kirton. Editing by Kim Coghill.
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