Huawei Retracts, Says its Hongmeng OS is Not Designed to Replace Android

Few months after it was reported to be developing its own OS for smartphones, Chinese OEM, Huawei has come out to say that its Hongmeng operating system is not for smartphones as the company intends to continue to use Google’s Android operating system. This was made known by Huawei’s Senior Vice President Catherine Chen in Brussels, yesterday.

Earlier in May, the US government blacklisted Huawei, which led to a trade break between Google and Huawei, as it removed Huawei from being a recipient of its services, including Google Play Store, Play Services as well Android OS updates and security patches.

Following this, news reports had it that the Chinese smartphone maker was in the process of launching a replacement for Android OS for its devices. The OS was reportedly named HongMeng OS (with tentative plans to rename it Ark OS in future) and was already in its testing phase with acceptance from major tech players in the Chinese space.

But now, Huawei has retracted saying that the OS is not designed for smartphones. According to the company’s SVP, the Hongmeng OS is for industrial use and actually has been in development long before the break of ties with Google.

According to TheVerge, this follows similar comments made by the company’s current chairman Liang Hua, who made it know that “Huawei hasn’t decided yet if the Hongmeng OS can be developed as a smartphone operating system in the future.” This is because the system is being designed as a low-latency solution for IoT devices, which is not suitable for a smartphone operating system – but is very much secure.

Recently, at the G20 summit in Japan, US President Donald Trump confirmed that trade talks between America and China are ‘right back on track’. Should it turn out positive, it could mean Huawei might no longer be blacklisted and can continue to trade with US companies like Google. But, there has been no word on exactly when that will happen. 

Should it go the other way, it might mean that Huawei will still rely on the Android OS (which is open sourced), but develop alternatives to Google services. However, it is pretty clear now that Huawei is not ready to use Hongmeng for smartphones just yet.