Huawei’s first HarmonyOS phones coming next year says Richard Yu

With the screws tightening ever more around Huawei’s mobile phone business, the company is desperate to get off Google’s Android platform.

Today Huawei’s CEO of consumer business, Richard Yu, confirmed that the company will ship its first phones running its own HarmonyOS next year.

Televisions running the IoT OS is already on sale in China, but Huawei hopes to make their HarmonyOS 2.0 a worldwide alternative to Android.

To that end, Huawei says the company has 700 million monthly active users, 1.6 million registered developers and has 81,000 applications already connected to HMS Core, their alternative to Google Play services.

The company recently announced HMS Core 5.0, which offers services in seven areas, including App Services, Graphics, Media, AI, Smart Device, Security, and System.

Besides the phone software issue, Huawei is facing a major headwind to their phone business after  TSMC Chairman Liu Deyin confirmed that the chip fab it will no longer ship to Huawei after September 14, and will not accept new orders from Huawei after May 15.

“Unfortunately, under the sanctions of the United States, TSMC only accepted orders before September 15th,” Richard Yu confirmed.  “By September 15th, it will not be able to produce chips for Huawei. So Kirin 9000 may be our last generation of Huawei Kirin high-end chips. ”

Huawei is reportedly turning to MediaTek and it remains to be seen if this is a viable pathway going forward.

The company is expected to launch HarmonyOS 2.0 at their 2020 HDC Developers Conference on September 10, and show off new products, including possible phones, running the OS.

via MyFixGuide